The King of Pointland

iPod TiVo, Kinda

After playing with iTunes 4.9 a bit more, it appears that my wish has been partially granted. When I listen to podcasts with iTunes (whether they're stored on my laptop or on the iPod), it begins playing at the point where I last paused the podcast. However, when I listen on my iPod, it doesn't. :-(

I wonder if it works with the Click Wheel iPod.

Update: It looks like it would work with the Click Wheel iPod. It would also work if my podcasts were "m4b" files, which are, apparently, bookmarkable AAC files. Most (all?) of the podcasts I listen to are mp3's. I guess I could convert them to m4b's (using an AppleScript, say), but I won't.

iTunes Podcast

So iTunes now has built-in podcasting functionality. Not too surprisingly, the interface kicks the ass of all the other Podcasting software out there. These applications work, and they helped get podcasting off the ground, but they also suck, and I'll be glad to delete them from the old CryBook.

Here's the thing though: Am I the only one made a bit uneasy by the "Free" labels next to the podcasts? Why not "Free (for now)" ? Truth be told, this might finally be a killer app for micropayments. I'd be willing to pay up to 7 cents for a decent podcast.

But not a penny more.

A Sailor's Life For Me

I went sailing on the Potomac Saturday in a friend's Sunfish. What fun! The weather was gorgeous, too.

Don't ask me who those people are. They're related to the family on the photocube insert.

Your Potential, Our Passion (To Quash It)

From today's Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Microsoft Corp.'s MSN online publishing service in China is preventing users from posting such words as "democracy" and "freedom," according to reports from the country, putting the company in the spotlight as the latest U.S. Internet operation to defer to Chinese government censorship.

Microsoft acknowledged that it is cooperating with China's government to censor the company's newly introduced Chinese-language Web portal. However, company representatives in Redmond said they weren't able to confirm specific examples of censored words.

The policy affects weblogs, or blogs, created by users through the MSN Spaces service in China, said Adam Sohn, an MSN global sales and marketing director. Microsoft and its government-funded Chinese business partner work with authorities to omit certain forbidden language, Sohn said.

If you read on you will see Microsoft is not alone.

The private sector has no monopoly on our pride today, though. From the Post:

U.S. Opposed Calls at NATO for Probe of Uzbek Killings
Officials Feared Losing Air Base Access

Defense officials from Russia and the United States last week helped block a new demand for an international probe into the Uzbekistan government's shooting of hundreds of protesters last month, according to U.S. and diplomatic officials.

Bad kitty!

Kilroy Was Here

Oh boy I love the New Yorker. Here are two brief items I just read while eating a reheated hemi-burrito. The first is Hendrik Hertzberg's trenchant analysis of the filibuster issue. To be honest, it probably doesn't rise to trenchancy, but I like typing "trenchant." The second, a Watergate recollection from Seymore Hersh, includes an amusing anecdote.

My iPod Could Learn from My TiVo

As I use my iPod to listen to podcasts, I find myself wishing my iPod would behave more like my TiVo and keep track of the timecode at which I paused a track. It does this if I pause, put the iPod to sleep, and wake it up later; but once I play another track, it loses this information. So when, a few days later, I return to that MAKE podcast I had to stop listening to when I parked my car, I have to scan back and forth until I think I have found the right spot. I just want it to "resume playing" like my TiVo does.

I really need to install Podzilla.

Sometimes Clarence Thomas is Right

In case you haven't heard, the Supreme Court today ruled that the federal government can prosecute those who use marijuana for medicinal purposes, even if such use has been legalized in their state of residence, and even if that marijuana is grown and consumed locally. The reasoning is that this somehow falls under the federal government's constitutional powers to regulate interstate commerce.

Clarence Thomas, in a dissenting opinion, writes:

Respondents Diane Monson and Angel Raich use marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana. If Congress can regulate this under the Commerce Clause, then it can regulate virtually anything — and the Federal Government is no longer one of limited and enumerated powers.

...

If the majority is to be taken seriously, the Federal Government may now regulate quilting bees, clothes drives, and potluck suppers throughout the 50 States. This makes a mockery of Madison's assurance to the people of New York that the "powers delegated" to the Federal Government are "few and defined," while those of the States are "ìnumerous and indefinite." No. 45, at 313 (J. Madison).

Antonin Scalia: Hello? States Rights? The hippies on the Court — who sided with the majority — were at least consistent, even if it did mean ruling against the ganj.