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Audio Books | |
March 23rd, 2018 | |
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I am a very active Audible user. I listen to a lot of audio books | |
and Amazon's service has the best selection at the cheapest prices | |
and offers the best players. I can listen on my phone or in the | |
browser and stay in sync. I can open up a kindle and have the book | |
pick up where the audio left off and vice-versa. This is some | |
slick stuff and it's my justification for sticking with a company | |
that represents a lot of things I despise. | |
There are some kinder looking alternative sources for the books | |
popping up around the net, but no one comes close to offering all | |
the things Audible does. That sucks because it reveals things | |
about me I don't like. I have chosen convenience over principals. | |
I do it for my phone as well, which is a Pixel on Google Fi. Yuck. | |
I may not have it in me to be the ultimate champion of | |
stickin-it-to-the-man but I'd like to think I'm not a total | |
pushover either. I'll get back at the giants with really | |
uncomfortable sand in their shoes. Here's a few of the | |
all-but-meaningless things I do to justify my lifestyle to myself. | |
1. I have an Amazon credit card. It gives me 5% back on purchases | |
on Amazon.com and that's pretty much the only place I use it. | |
Here's the thing, once you get those points Amazon suggests you | |
redeem them on purchases. If you use your points on a purchase, | |
you don't EARN points on that purchase. If you did, that 5% | |
would really be 5.55555...%. Little bits matter, right? Well, | |
that credit card is offered through Chase. If you go to the | |
Chase website and redeem the points directly with them, you can | |
apply those points in the form of a statement credit. Aka, you | |
get that much money back, but it didn't in any way affect your | |
future purchases with Amazon. So, just to ensure I get that | |
extra 0.55555...% percent, when I'm about to make an Amazon | |
purchase and I have points available, I'll go to Chase and | |
redeem that many points off my bill as I make a normal purchase | |
on Amazon. Take THAT giant corporation! I'm squeezing whole | |
dollars off you! | |
2. Audible books have stupid DRM on them. I don't care for that so | |
any books I get from them I immediately strip to mp3s and | |
back-up, just in case. Now and then I want to listen to | |
something without Amazon's help. Now I can just play an mp3 | |
from the command-line. In fact, today I finally figured out | |
a viable method for resuming playback without having to | |
remember the timestamp. | |
$ mpv --save-position-on-quit | |
It will resume where you left off when you quit. If you do it | |
on a directory it will remember where in the whole playlist you | |
left off. Really solid solve! It supports time-scale changes | |
too, so it's got everything you could want for playback. The | |
only lack is syncing between devices. Not quite viable to | |
replace Audible, but it's a piece of the puzzle. | |
I forget where I was going with this phlog. I like audio books and | |
maybe one day I'll be able to cut out Amazon and Google | |
completely. Until then... | |