Progress note
20′ non-stop on the Nordic Track ski machine today—the first of many, is my plan. And day 1 of the Plateau Buster 2-day diet. Probably the exercise is what will make the difference.
I did discover anew the pleasures of listening to a narrative account while on the ski machine. This morning was an episode from the old Let’s Pretend radio program (specifically, “Why the sea is salt”), but I just downloaded (for free) Robinson Crusoe (at the link). I always liked that novel in any event. Audiobooks.org seems to be a good source of free audiobooks.
UPDATE: Not so good a source, as it turns out. I downloaded the MP3 file, but found it was an invalid filetype. I’ll check my library for audiobooks.
UPDATE 2: Library allows me to download audiobooks. The only problem is that the download does not work at all. I’m trying Audible.com, an Amazon.com company. LATER: Library called. On looking at the records, they told me that the reason the download didn’t work was that I was number 15 on the hold list for the book: digital rights management limits the number of “copies” they can “check out” at any one time—thus completely subverting and negating one of the primary benefits of digital copies.
UPDATE 3: Audible.com doesn’t work at all. I did call the help number and found that their service is incompatible with Google Chrome, a fact that they carefully do not mention. I cancelled membership. (It was a trial period, with $15/month after that, and pricing on the books is EXTREMELY unclear.)
This may be one of those ideas that’s ahead of its time.
I do like audible. Their pricing structure is 3-fold (and thus perhaps unclear).
The highest price is for those who are not members but just want to purchase a book (comparable to list prices on, e.g., iTunes).
With membership, you get various “credits” per month. You can use your “credit” that comes with your membership each month to buy books. Most books are 1 credit, although there is the occasional 2 credit book I have seen, I have never encountered one for more than 2 credits but can’t attest that they don’t exist. Thus, a $15 membership would buy you ca. 1 book per month, often one whose list price may be double or more the cost of your “credit” (e.g. Herodotus lists at $35 but I got it for one credit, and usually there are promos, e.g. $7.99 for three months and you are free to quit right at the end of that — or even earlier with no further obligations or contracts).
Beyond your “credit(s)”, as a member you can buy further books at a discount below the list price (between a $5-10 dollar discount per book).
Works fine with Mozilla, so perhaps run a second browser downloading audio books (not that I am suggesting you rejoin audible — I just wonder if that is also you problem with the library download system?).
TYD
5 November 2010 at 7:04 pm
Aha. Thanks for explaining the pricing. I didn’t get it at all. Maybe this is worth bringing up IE—or, come to think of it, I could try IE Tab in Chrome, which might well work.
The library problem indeed might be Chrome, but I was later told that they can only check out a few “copies” of a book, and I was #15 on the hold list for the title I wanted.
LeisureGuy
6 November 2010 at 6:28 am