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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...