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View Full Version : Benedict XVI got himself an iPod!


Iandefor
March 4th, 2006, 07:48 PM
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0601282.htm

I just found this so amusing I had to share it with y'all. Those little buggers are everywhere!

From the article:

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A group of Vatican Radio employees gave Pope Benedict XVI a brand new iPod nano loaded with special Vatican Radio programming and classical music.

To honor the pope's first visit to the radio's broadcasting headquarters, the radio's technical staff decided the pencil-thin, state-of-the-art audio player would make the perfect gift.

Now that Vatican Radio offers podcasts in eight different languages, the pope has the technological capability to plug in and import the radio's audio files.

Pope Benedict visited the programming and broadcasting hub of "the pope's radio" March 3 to mark the station's 75th anniversary.

Hundreds of radio journalists, sound engineers and support staff lined the radio's hallways to greet the pope and present him with gifts, mostly special in-house productions such as CDs and books on the church, religion and the pope.

"We don't have a huge gift to give to the pope, but we do have small signs of our work" to give him, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, Vatican Radio's general director, told Catholic News Service (http://www.catholicnews.com/index.html).

Though the white iPod nano is tiny, it still made an impression on the pope. When the head of the radio's technical and computer support department, Mauro Milita, identified himself and handed the pope the boxed iPod, the pope was said to have replied, "Computer technology is the future."

The pope's new 2-gigabyte digital audio player already was loaded with a sampling of the radio's programming in English, Italian and German and musical compositions by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Frederic Chopin, Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Igor Stravinsky. The stainless steel back was engraved with the words "To His Holiness, Benedict XVI" in Italian.

Once the pope, who is also a pianist, gets the hang of the device's trademark click wheel, he will be able to listen to a special 20-minute feature produced by the radio's English program that highlights Mozart's life and music to commemorate the 250th anniversary of his birth.

The iPod also contains an English-language radio drama on the life of St. Thomas a Becket and a 10-minute feature on the creation of Vatican Radio, with original sound clips of the inventor of the radio, Guglielmo Marconi, and Vatican Radio's founder, Pope Pius XI.

The pope also can relive the historical papal transition of April 2005. On the player, the radio's German program included a mix of news and interviews done during the death of Pope John Paul II, the conclave and the election of Pope Benedict.

With his new iPod, the pope can access the radio's daily podcasts, as well as download music and audio books from the Internet.

Minyaliel
March 4th, 2006, 08:04 PM
Heh. Sure the old guy needs some entertainment, too. He's a human, after all.

Sirin
March 4th, 2006, 08:18 PM
Heh heh, good old Joe Ratzinger. Will HE be in the next iPod silhouette commercial? :p

Iandefor
March 4th, 2006, 08:29 PM
Heh. Sure the old guy needs some entertainment, too. He's a human, after all. Yup. I wouldn't have gone with the music preloaded, though. Never been much of a classical music fan.

Sirin
March 4th, 2006, 08:32 PM
Yup. I wouldn't have gone with the music preloaded, though. Never been much of a classical music fan.

Heh, well, he DOES have iTunes, though. :D

Iandefor
March 4th, 2006, 09:10 PM
Heh, well, he DOES have iTunes, though. :D Yup.

And something just struck me- T'was the Apple that the Serpent tempted Eve with... :twisted:

bored2k
March 4th, 2006, 09:12 PM
Yup.

And something just struck me- T'was the Apple that the Serpent tempted Eve with... :twisted:
What are you saying? That Macinstosh will become the pope's religion? Who'd Microsoft use to copy them, Stallman? Bono? Buahahaha.

Iandefor
March 4th, 2006, 09:17 PM
What are you saying? That Macinstosh will become the pope's religion? Who'd Microsoft use to copy them, Stallman? Bono? Buahahaha. EmBallmer. Or Pearly Gates. Think about it...

Gadren
March 4th, 2006, 11:15 PM
Well, since the Pope's infalliable...I guess it's time I get one. :P

Iandefor
March 4th, 2006, 11:19 PM
Well, since the Pope's infalliable...I guess it's time I get one. :P I must be psychic... got mine a while ago. But it wasn't a nano! Curses!

bored2k
March 5th, 2006, 12:48 AM
I must be psychic... got mine a while ago. But it wasn't a nano! Curses!
It would be a huge feat for me to get one. Why? Because I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, knowing how much hardware I could have bought for my computer with the money spent on an iPod.

aysiu
March 5th, 2006, 12:50 AM
Yup.

And something just struck me- T'was the Apple that the Serpent tempted Eve with... :twisted: It wasn't a fig?

Iandefor
March 5th, 2006, 01:25 AM
It wasn't a fig? It was actually a pomegranate. But most people I know assume it was an apple, so I figured it'd be safe to go with an apple.

drizek
March 5th, 2006, 01:28 AM
Yup. I wouldn't have gone with the music preloaded, though. Never been much of a classical music fan.

Its not the classical music, its the vatican propaganda that turns me off.

plus, why didnt they just get him a decent mp3 player that had a built in radio instead of having prerecorded stuff on an ipod?

Iandefor
March 5th, 2006, 01:29 AM
It would be a huge feat for me to get one. Why? Because I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, knowing how much hardware I could have bought for my computer with the money spent on an iPod. Yeah. My iPod cost just a little less than what my computer cost to buy- the iPod was around $324 once shipping and sales tax (Damn you, state of washington!) were taken care of. My computer was ~$355 after shipping. But I don't worry about new hardware for my computer until it's literally unusable (my last computer had never seen an upgrade- and it was bought in 2000)- most of the time. I think, with this one, I'll actually stay on top of it :-D.

bored2k
March 5th, 2006, 02:08 AM
plus, why didnt they just get him a decent mp3 player that had a built in radio instead of having prerecorded stuff on an ipod?
Because they want the old man to be hip? Think about it. The previous pope wore Bono's sunglasses, so it's only fair that Mr. Benedict gets something hip too :-). Giving him a Zen would have probably divided the catholic church ;).

bored2k
March 5th, 2006, 02:10 AM
Yeah. My iPod cost just a little less than what my computer cost to buyThat sentence right there, it's not right on any level [-( . I bet the pope would eBay his customized iPod if he knew the amount of people that would be able to have food with the price of that little aparatus. And $1 per song? We'd have the first known pope to use/advertise P2P!

Kvark
March 5th, 2006, 04:14 AM
That sentence right there, it's not right on any level [-( . I bet the pope would eBay his customized iPod if he knew the amount of people that would be able to have food with the price of that little aparatus. And $1 per song? We'd have the first known pope to use/advertise P2P!
lol! The evil emperor Gates vs the Pope, the holy pirate. That'd be a battle of biblical proportions. And all the priests would get on P2P to share porn and christian music ...no, wait that'd be an odd mix.

It was nice of them to give the guy a cool gadget, now he has something to listen to while his priests hold long preaches.

On a serious note. That fruit Adam and Eve ate was not an apple, fig, pomegranate or any other normal fruit. It was "the fruit of knowledge of good and evil" which is sin, shame and exile from paradise. Or in other words, sin/crime exists only because we have learned to judge actions as good or evil.

Lord Illidan
March 5th, 2006, 03:01 PM
Well, well, well, imagine that. The Pope with an Ipod.. Wish someone gave him Linux, too.

Stormy Eyes
March 5th, 2006, 03:17 PM
Well, well, well, imagine that. The Pope with an Ipod.. Wish someone gave him Linux, too.

Only if it's Lesbian Linux (http://lesbian.mine.nu/). The Pope needs more pr0n to loosen him up.

benplaut
March 5th, 2006, 04:41 PM
what, only 2 gigs?