A New Earth

A new phenomenon has graced (or disgraced) the presence of popular television for the past few weeks. Oprah, the famous (or infamous) talk show host has endorsed a new book for her book club. Labeling this choice ‘a bold move’, Oprah decided that this book is different and deserves more time and effort than any of her other books that she has suggested for her book club. Therefore, every Monday night, for the past 8 weeks, Oprah has had a ‘virtual class discussion’ on this book, A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle.

After receiving a youtube video link on a forwarded email, I decided that it may be beneficial to take a deeper look into this work. The youtube video has an obvious bias, and I do not like to take things at face value when they are critical of someone else’s work, so I did my own research. Oprah has provided these class sessions for free on iTunes, so I downloaded the first hour and a half session and watched it.

Tolle and Oprah (it’s interesting how we only use her first name when referring to her) talked to each other and to people from around the world about the first chapter of the book, A New Earth. One lady videoed in a question that asked, ‘How can I still be a Christian and use this teaching? Is it possible to reconcile the two together?’ The answers from Tolle and Oprah were very interesting, to say the least. Oprah proceeded to tell a story of why she left the Baptist church she attended for years. Her reason was because the pastor one morning said that ‘God is a jealous God.’ Upon hearing this, Oprah responded (at 27 years of age), ‘What? God is a jealous God? Jealous of what? Jealous of me? I thought God is Love.’ After this revelation, Oprah left the church.

Now, the answer, although not sufficient in my opinion, basically went like this: God is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-present, and we cannot keep God ‘in the box’, so we need to be open to ANY means by which God relates to each individual (paraphrased by me). The bottom line is that Oprah believes that Tolle’s methods are totally kosher with the Christian Faith and that his methods actually enhance our Faith in Christ.

Immediately after hearing this, I decided it would be worth a read. If it enhances Christianity, then I sure want to see what this is about, right? (please excuse the sarcasm) So I checked the book out of our public library and read it, in a very short amount of time, by the way. Here are some quotes I found interesting:

‘Christ can be seen as the archetypal human, embodying both the pain and the possibility of transcendence.’ (144)

‘The possibility of such a transformation [of consciousness] has been the central message of the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers – Buddha, Jesus, and others, not all of them known – were humanity’s early flowers. A widespread flowering was not yet possible at that time, and their message became largely misunderstood and often greatly distorted.’ (6)

‘In Hindu teachings, this transformation is called enlightenment. In the teachings of Jesus, it is salvation, and in Buddhism, it is the end of suffering.’ (13)

And my personal favorite:
‘Almost every woman has her share in the collective female pain-body (term used to describe the ‘bad’ which is in us), which tends to become activated particularly just prior to the time of menstruation. At that time many woman become overwhelmed by intense negative emotion.’ (155)

These quotes just give a snippet of ‘enlightenment’ (pun intended) into the writing of Tolle.

Although this book is among a myriad of New Age material out there, I was particularly upset with Mr. Tolle and his academic integrity, or lack thereof. He uses Platonic philosophy mixed with Freudian psychology and he gives ZERO credit to either of them. He has an entire chapter dedicated to the concept of the ‘ego’ and says nothing of Sigmund Freud. And he talks about the ‘Forms’ and the images of the Forms but says nothing of Plato. This is not acceptable in academia and should be condemned as plagiarism.

Finally, Tolle’s ‘inspiration’ for the title of the book comes from the Bible, where Jesus talks about ‘a new heaven and a new earth’. He says, ‘A new heaven is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and a new earth is its reflection in the physical realm’ (23). In Tolle’s mind, and Oprah’s voice, humanity is increasing becoming ‘aware’ of who we intrinsically are. This is done by being in the ‘present state of consciousness’ and not thinking of the past or the future, only the now (his former book is called, The Power of Now). By becoming aware of our ‘presentness’, what Tolle actually refers to as the ‘I Am’, we will be transformed into the higher state of consciousness, which will yield a new earth, which will be free of pain.

I thought it poignant to read and write about this book because of the extremely large influence Oprah has on millions of people in the world in general, and millions of Christians in particular. Tolle is a plagiarist, an author with no academic integrity, who also takes the Bible completely out of context with every passage he uses. This book IS NOT kosher with the Christian Faith, and SHOULD NOT be used to ‘enhance’ our Christian beliefs. It negates the person and work of Christ. It places I, me, my at the center of the universe, and it destroys any conception of original sin. Oprah may be a nice person, but her endorsement of this book as being something every Christian should read and use seems to be an act of a ‘wolf in sheeps clothing’.

Oh, and by the way, Tolle believes in the Big Bang Theory, to which he adds: The world started as a big bang of the material. It is growing bigger and more complex every day. Eventually, however, it will get to the point where it begins to shrink down to nothingness again. At that point, another bang will happen and start the process all over again. Good one Tolle.

Tongue Planted….

…. firmly in cheek.

‘The Only Constant Is Change’.

That statement is more an awareness, a recognition…. rather than an ongoing embracement and welcoming of circumstance. I don’t normally write anything personal here, and I don’t intend to make a habit of it, but this weekend was a milestone of sorts and I fell compelled to share.

So, in concert with that, is the acknowledgement that I am indeed human. I like a certain amount of ’sameness’, of routine, certitude. I also like to put a good deal of preparation into ‘the big stuff’, lots of thought, I ponder all the options. Snappy decisions aren’t my forte…. and I ain’t as young as I used to be.

To digress…. Brenda and I had our twentieth anniversary dinner a little late; Saturday night to be exact. It was a great time, wonderful company, savoury food, lots of shared memories and lively talk. Between our ‘before’, ‘during’ and ‘after’ dinner talks we managed to hash out some reunification plans; how to re-arrange the house, how to re-blend possessions, what to be rid of… and then we got to talking about the ‘when’ of it.

It seems that now we’re in agreement on things I’m wanted on deck post haste, ASAP, pronto, NOW! … and hey! it’s nice to be wanted and all… but it’s too much work to do overnight. I’ll just have to tackle the sorting, chucking and packing as best I can, a room at a time. Look….there…. in the near future … a heckofayard sale!!!

After exercising lots of patience I wasn’t prepared to suddenly rush…. and you’re likely thinking, ‘Lord, will nothing make this man happy? even what he wants?’

People are strange. I ought to know; I am one.

The McCain-Rice Dilemma

I find these rumors of a McCain/Rice ticket very disturbing. During her tenure as Secretary of State she has shown horrible judgement in dealing with terrorists.Rice has gone far to appease terror at every step. She has ignored both US and Israeli law by calling for Israel to divide Jerusalem, She has compared terrorist leaders to Martin Luther King. Its not surprising that one of the US’s most vehement condemnations of Hamas occurred when Condi was on an airplane away from microphones.

Senator McCain is seen as someone who is pro-Israel and anti-terror. In order to establish himself as the candidate who will be best at defending the free world, he should be campaigning against Condoleezza Rice’s policies. He Shouldn’t by any means have her as a running mate:

Slow Suicide on Israeli Security: McCain Must Spell Out Differences with Bush/Rice Approach

Joel Himelfarb

While American political aficionados are fixating on everything from Bill Clinton’s tantrums on his wife’s behalf to Barack Obama’s appearance on The View, a volatile political/military situation has been building in Israel. That nation finds itself under mounting political siege from rogue regimes in Iran and Syria and their terrorist surrogates, who are becoming increasingly brazen in their violence. On Friday, a Hamas sniper based in Gaza tried to assassinate Israeli Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, who was visiting the Israeli side of the border – where Israeli civilians have had their lives turned upside down by terrorist rocket and mortar attacks since Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza three years ago.The sniper missed Dichter, while hitting a senior aide to the minister with a bullet in the neck. (He is hospitalized in fair condition).The attack occurred as Dichter was briefing a group of Jewish and Christian visitors from Toronto.

Israel has refrained from launching the sort of large-scale military operation necessary to stop the terrorist fire from Gaza – at least partially in response to pressure for “restraint” from the United States. With President Bush getting ready to visit Israel next month as part of his quixotic campaign to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement before he leaves office, his administration is pressuring to take a softer approach to the terrorist threat from the West Bank as well. Last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice got Israel to remove security checkpoints that have proven critical to Israel’s ability to prevent mass-casualty attacks from the West Bank terrorists.

All of this could have large implications for the likely Republican presidential nominee, Sen. John McCain, who needs to begin to publicly distance himself from the Bush/Rice approach toward Israel. This is particularly true with regard to placing pressure on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s weak Left-of-center Israeli government to make security concessions that will weaken Israel’s ability to prevent Palestinian terrorists from attacking it. If Israel experiences an upsurge in attacks, you can bet that Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton will try to sound like superhawks in arguing that the Jewish State has the right to defend itself. (All the better to camouflage their own McGovernite national-security views.) You can be absolutely certain that in such circumstances, Clinton and Obama will do everything possible to link McCain with the most questionable parts of the Bush State Department’s Middle East policy.

Given the short attention span of the American electorate, which less than two years ago voted to make Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House and Harry Reid Senate majority leader, the Arizona senator cannot take for granted that the voters will see through the phoniness and political spin. After all, such tactics have proven effective time and again in getting Democrats elected president in modern times. In 1960, John F. Kennedy (attacking Vice President Richard Nixon over a dubious “missile gap”), in 1976, Jimmy Carter (attacking President Ford from the right for being insufficiently tough on Communist human-rights violations in places like Poland) and Bill Clinton in 1992 (suggesting the first President Bush wasn’t tough enough on Communist China) all made use of these kinds of attacks on Republican administrations. All of these lines of attack were false and misleading to one degree or another – and all of them worked.

If McCain fails to spell out his differences with a badly flawed Bush/Rice approach, he’ll give the Democrats a golden opportunity to link him with a policy debacle in the making. McCain needs to start explaining now why this approach is wrong and what he would do differently. A good place to start would be to make it clear that he would not pressure Israel into questionable concessions that could jeopardize its security – like Rice’s successful effort last week to pressure Defense Minister Ehud Barak to get rid of security checkpoints that have helped dramatically reduce the ability of suicide bombers to infiltrate into Israel.

At one level, this is pathetic. Ehud Barak, the most decorated soldier in Israeli history, was a disaster as prime minister from 1999-2001. Israel’s chaotic unilateral withdrawal from Southern Lebanon, ceding its northern border to the terrorist Hezbollah, was his doing. In July 2000, Barak at Camp David offered to withdraw virtually to the 1949 Armistice Line. Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat rejected the offer and went to war in September 2000. When Israelis went to the polls less than five months later, they had had enough, tossing Barak out of office and giving Likud opposition leader Ariel Sharon a 25-point landslide victory.

Following his humiliation by the voters, Barak went into the private sector and became a spectacularly wealthy man. Last year, he defeated Labor Party leader Amir Peretz in a primary to become head of the party once again. With his victory, Barak replaced Peretz as defense minister in the coalition government headed by Olmert.

Upon returning to government service, Barak has tried to reinvent himself as someone who could be counted upon to act decisively against terrorism. Last month, he appeared before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, pointing out how critical the West Bank security checkpoints are to the security of his country.

“Each removal of any roadblock is tantamount to gambling with Israelis’ lives,” Barak said. “No roadblock was positioned where it was without a very cogent reason. No roadblock is without clear security value. Each roadblock is there only because it’s necessitated by indisputable security contingencies.”

Nothing changed during the two-week period between Barak’s testimony and Rice’s visit to Israel on Monday, when Barak, responding to pressure from Washington and the Left wing of his own party, announced the removal of 50 of the roadblocks. As the Jerusalem Post pointed out the following day, it didn’t take long for the new approach to start showing results – bad ones. Within hours of the removal of one of the barriers, known as the Rimonim barricade, there was a terrorist attempt nearby to stab an Israeli; this time the terrorist was shot by a would-be victim.

Desperation efforts to risk Israeli civilians’ security in order to help the sclerotic Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas fight Hamas don’t work. Five years ago, Israel removed the same Rimonim barrier, but had to put it back up after several Israelis were murdered by terrorists. For the Israel Defense Force and many civilians living on the Israeli side of the Green Line, the feeling is that roadblocks removed by Barak “have triggered a time-bomb,” the Post noted. “The only question remaining is whose lives will be lost as a result.”

To the extent that this is the product of purely domestic Israeli political considerations, that’s something for Israelis to decide – not Americans. The problem here is that Bush and Rice are effectively weighing in on behalf of the Israeli Left by pressuring Israel to do this. If John McCain does not make clear that he opposes such foolishness, then he is making a potentially catastrophic mistake.

Joel Himelfarb is an editorial writer for The Washington Times. The views expressed here are his own.

Comcast HD -vs- Satellite HD

I have Comcast HD service, and I have to “respond” to a set of commercials they are running. Comcast claims to have three times the HD programming than satellite. Though this is not a lie, it’s certainly is stretching the truth.

Channels:
Comcast = 27
DirectTV = 47
Dish Network = 34

These are the counts for basic HD service and does not include Premium HD. Comcast offers Cinemax and Starz in HD, the satellite providers also offer HBO and Showtime. If you actually review the HD channel selection for all three providers, you will find that the base set includes allot of fluffy channels that no one really wants, but it’s pretty uniform.

The big problem with the channel selection is that Comcast just added Discovery for HD, whereas the satellites include Animal Planet, Science Channel, and History Channel.

So how can Comcast have three time more HD programming?

The answer is in the fine print. “Comcast offers three times more HD view options than satellite.” Here how it works. Comcast has a fiber backbone with a hundreds of times the bandwidth of satellite. This means they can throw allot of bandwidth at OnDemand programming. As of 2 January, 2008, Comcast had 181 HD OnDemand selections. Add 140 to 27, you get 167. Divide that by 40, you get four to one. Factor the limited satellite on OnDemand and the number slides to three to one.

Now here’s the fun part: Of Comcast’s HD OnDemand, 40 selections are three minute music videos, 36 are five minute game reviews featuring cut scenes, an 19 others are vignettes of less than ten minutes each. If you were actually to sit down and watch all the HD OnDemand, back to back, it would require about 36 hours.

The Comcast claim is based upon two things: You watch less than 24 hours of programming a month and you really don’t care what you watch during those 24 hours.

In the end, it looks like DirectTV has the best deal.

iRiver Clix2

I got a new mp3 player a couple of weeks ago and I love it so much that I’ve been dying to review it. It came out last Spring (though my model came out later in the year since it’s 8GB).

Given that my iPod Shuffle barely stays on my armband anymore (I had to glue back the USB part because it so easily snapped off at the gym one day), I tried to replace it last Spring with the Sansa c250 and miserably failed. After that, I decided to pay attention to quality, not so much price, in searching for a small, flash-based mp3 player with a screen so that I could not only play music at the gym (from a playlist created on my computer), but also listen to podcasts in the car and possibly even watch video podcasts on a plane. After doing a lot of research, I narrowed it down to the Cowon D2, the iRiver Clix, and the Creative Zen (no more Apple products for me!) After reading the reviews and deciding the features I wanted that they had issues with (the Zen’s expansion slot is actually almost useless), I decided that it was either the Cowon or the Clix, and when iRiver offered a $40 rebate it was pretty much a no-brainer. I have to say that it was a surprisingly smart decision: this is, without a doubt, the best mp3 player I’ve ever interacted with.

Let’s start with size, style, and navigation. This device is pretty much as small as you really need it to be. It’s definitely a little bigger than a Nano and a little thicker, but I never jumped on the “I want the thinnest mp3 player in the world” bandwagon so it’s pretty reasonably thin to me. It easily slides into one’s pocket. It’s not even that heavy because I don’t really notice it at the gym except for when I have to rotate the armband on my arm occasionally (I bought a silicone case and armband from the iRiver store). I think it gets big points on style for just being really sleek, smooth, and black. It’s not adulterated with any symbols on the face, and the information on the back is quite reserved. Even the side button labels aren’t too big (after playing with it for just a bit, you won’t need them). What’s really impressive is the navigation though. I was a little skeptical about the d-click navigation, but it’s more intuitive to me than the iPod wheel. I love that rather than copy the iPod or the Zune, they went for something fairly original here in just having these 4 giant buttons on the edges of the device. It’s pretty easy to use with just one hand if you’re wearing a jacket and don’t want to have to look at the screen, and there’s never any confusion with icons on the screen to help you navigate. Holding the right button always brings up a side menu, and that’s the most complicated thing you need to understand. I had the hardest time navigating my old Sansa, so this was a breath of fresh air for me. The only other buttons are power, volume, hold, and the smart key. I’ll admit that the hold button can be a little tricky to get to, but I think you’ll get used to it. Also, the volume buttons may seem backwards if you’re looking at it from the wrong angle, but I got used to that pretty quickly. The smart key is excellent: it can turn the screen on/off, change the orientation, play/pause, go to the home screen, start/stop recording, shuffle, or do a/b repeat. You just change a quick setting and that’s it! I think that key was a stroke of genius, because I may care more about easy of play/pause than battery life so I may want it to play/pause rather than turn the screen off, etc.

The next thing I want to cover is music. It supports all the most popular music file types and any Windows Media Player-based subscription services (including Rhapsody with free firmware update). The sound quality is very nice, in my opinion. I’m far from an audiophile, but I noticed a difference immediately from the sound I’m used to hearing out of my Shuffle. You get a full stereo effect, and you can really get immersed in your music, even at the gym (because I bought this thing primarily for the gym, I may keep referencing that) where it’s relatively noisy. You can create however many playlists as you want on the computer, which I’ve only managed to get working on the iRiver Plus 3 software. That’s the software that came with the device, and it’s not bad though I wouldn’t make it your new music management program. I’ve decided to ditch the memory-hungry iTunes for Media Monkey, which does an excellent job of letting you auto-tag your songs from Amazon. Plus, when it tags your album art, it puts it in the tag (iTunes just dumps them in a folder), and the Clix will only show album art from the mp3’s tag. I recommend adding all your music folders to iRiver Plus 3, and then just create playlists with the songs you want in your favorite music program and drag them into a playlist in iRiver Plus 3. Then, just load them onto the device this way (you don’t even need to actually use this playlist on the device, it’ s just to keep the songs in one place). This way, it’ll automatically be organized on the device. Otherwise, if you just drag-and-drop, you have to rebuild the database on the device. By the way, file transfers are quite fast. Anyway, it does support MTP mode if you really like Windows Media Player, but I like UMS/MSC for loading videos and pictures easily in Xplorer2 and using iRiver Plus 3, which is quite lite. I don’t even know how to load themes (see below) and Flash games on there in MTP mode (I haven’t tried MTP). In addition to the album art and song information, you get the progress bar and what song is coming up next, which really comes in handy. You can also set the equalizer settings, change the playback speed, change the scan speed (very handy for long podcasts), show lyrics, rate it, and change the playback mode (e.g. shuffle, repeat once). You can also build-up a quick list on the device just by holding the right button when showing songs to get to that menu with all those options and adding a song to the quick list. You only create one of these, but I can’t imagine that you’ll need more than one of them.

It also supports podcasts and Audible, though Audible books are only usable in MTP. You can choose MTP or UMS/MSC mode, but you have to format in between changes so make sure you back-up the device before doing so. It claims that podcast support is only in MSC/UMS mode, but if they’re just .mp3s then I can’t see why you can’t use them in both modes. I think it means for mypodder support, which comes on the device by default. You don’t need mypodder though: all you really need to do is drag and drop songs into a ‘Podcasts’ folder in ‘Music’ and you can get to them straight from ‘Podcasts’ on the device rather than searching artist or genre or anything (though in MTP mode, you may need to). I really wish you could bookmark in podcasts, but I heard that you can in Audible books. Oh, and one thing about UMS/MSC mode: unlike the iPod you can drag your content to and from the device. So it doubles as a flash drive (on the iPod, you can’t take your music from it, only put it on).

The FM Radio it sports is quite nice. It does an excellent job of auto-presets, and I only have trouble with reception where I have trouble with cell phone reception. My radio on my Sansa never worked, so believe in this device having a real radio, which you can record from. You can also record your voice (apart from the radio) because it has a mic built-in, and you can turn on a setting that will ignore all noise except for your voice. This works surprisingly well: the recording is nice and crisp, and you can even choose the quality.

I should probably mention that the AMOLED screen it supports is incredible. It also packs a Lithiom-ion polymer battery, which is just the next generation of Li-on. It has the same problems, but it’s cheaper to make and more robust to damage. Anyway, the AMOLED screen has no backlight: it’s just ridiculously bright on its own because it holds its charge so well, and it has a 180 degree viewing angle. Plus, since it requires less power (made of organic material) you can get 5 hours of battery life on just video and 25 of just audio. You can completely charge the device in just 2 hours (via mini-USB, or the cradle accessory that no one seems to like). I can attest to this being pretty accurate, though I haven’t worn it totally down. Like any Li-on, it’ll degrade over time, but I imagine it’ll take a long time for most users.

This screen does a very nice job with your pictures and videos. You can create playlists with your pictures and play them in slideshow mode with music playing in the background. It really shines on video playback though: it’s like you’re watching video on a nice LCD TV except that it’s been shrunk to 2.2″. If you get the silicone case then you can even use the belt clip as a kickstand to place it on the table while you watch your video. I’ve managed to watch a 40-minute TV show with no problems, and the audio even came out quite well. It’s really ideal for video podcasts (e.g. Revision 3), but I’ve put a couple of DVD movies on mine. Sure, it’s a little smaller because the letter boxing is more on widescreen films (I haven’t tried a full screen because I don’t own any), but still watchable in pieces. I’ve been converting my movies to .avi using iRiverter because it only supports OpenXvid .avi (and some strain of .wmv), and I’ve found iRiverter to be the easiest (plus, it runs nicely in the background without disrupting the speed of your computer much at all). iRiver includes media conversion software on the software disc, but you can see all your options here. I managed to convert a DVD in about 80 minutes and a TV show in under 20 minutes on my old school P4. I like that it will remember your place in your videos (this can be turned off), too, and you can set the scan speed.

My absolute favorite part of this device though is how customizable it is. Because it’s running Flash Lite, you can create your own themes (with animated backgrounds and a different background for each day of the week) or download them online. The Korean iRiver site had a contest last year so there’s a ton of really nice ones floating around (just check the ClixHere forums for them).

You can also add whatever fonts you want (as long as they’re true type) to be used pretty much everywhere text is displayed on the device, which includes foreign language fonts. Not only is one unique in having this device since a lot of stores don’t seem to carry it, but you can be unique from other Clix users in your theme and font, and you can change it as often as you’d like to keep you from getting bored with it. How many other mp3 players let you do that? Since they’re small in size, you can put a lot on there and still keep your mp3s and videos even if you have a 2GB model (it comes in 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB). Oh, and you can change the screen orientation (configurable to that smart key button, if you’d like) in case you don’t like it being in landscape mode. It feels natural in any orientation, though I always use landscape just as a personal preference.

The last thing to talk about are the extras. If you have any text files with maybe a todo list or something, you can drag them right onto to the device and read them. It also has a handy alarm clock with a nice quick alarm option (e.g. 10 minutes from now). The best extra is the flash games: they provide you with a bunch of games already and I’ve found more free ones from browsing the ClixHere forums. They’re really fun and include a frogger clone, blackjack, sudoku, a tetris clone, pacman, and many others (plus applications like a calculator or memo pad). Anyone who develops in Flash Lite is free to create content for it! There’s also a bunch of other settings including sleep timer (can sleep or power-off) and screen brightness.

I think that about covers it. You probably think I’m a little nuts for writing such a detailed review, but I wanted to be thorough because there’s just so much to talk about in this tiny little thing (and iRiver has no idea how to advertise it, clearly). As you can tell, I’m thrilled with it and I had to really think hard to find any bad points. Just to give you a quick summary…

Pros:
-Very nice battery life (Li-py)
-Extremely bright, high quality AMOLED screen
-Intuitive navigation (D-click and smart key work great)
-Fast! It’s quick to charge, load content onto, and skimming pictures and videos and such on the device.
-Not intrusive at all at the gym (lightweight, nice form factor, good with the misticaudio silicone case)
-Impressive sound quality (even on low-end headphones) and video quality
-Completely customizable (theme and font)
-Actually usable FM radio
-Flash games!
-You can create playlists on the computer (my Sansa couldn’t) or a quick list onthe device
-Voice/FM radio recorder (can filter out noise for the mic)
-Stylish (and unique)
-Fun to use (I still haven’t gotten bored with it)
-It actually has a very customizable equalizer

Cons:
-Expensive ($240 retail for the 8GB red line, but you can find it cheaper at Amazon)
-Hold button can be hard to get to
-You have to get used to the volume keys’ orientation
-No bookmarking on podcasts
-The iRiver Plus 3 software is nothing special, but if you drag-and-drop music you have to rebuild the database on the device
-An output to TV would’ve been nice
-If you really want to be nit-picky, the screen could be a tad bigger, but then you’d lose some of the nice form factor and big easy-to-find buttons

If you want other opinions, I love the Pocketables one, and the Anything But iPod one isn’t too shabby either. I highly recommend this device if you’re looking for something in the iPod Nano market but with a bigger screen and more features (and fewer problems).