Pedagogical Posturing

I was alerted via an RSS feed from Mashable that StumbleUpon had a toolbar that could be downloaded for Firefox running in Windows, Mac OS or Linux. As I started to play around with the toolbar, I became increasing absorbed by the random websites, photographs, videos and blogs that it keeps throwing up (once you’ve decided on your interests).  The latest interesting site that popped up is called nuTsie and it allows users to share their music collections. The site also makes its own compilations such as the Top 25 Most Played that I’m currently listening to. I’m still a bit confused as to how it all works but as you listen to songs, you can download them with Firefox plugins like DownloadHelper or FlashGot. The files are in .3gpp format (MPEG-4 AAC audio), sampled in stereo at 32Khz, not CD-quality but nonetheless they sound very good and it’s a great way to find out what people are listening to and thus keep abreast of contemporary artists and even ones from the past that I may not be familiar with.