iTunes can play Ogg Vorbis again!

I rip all my CDs to the Ogg Vorbis format -- partly because of sound quality and partly on principle. The algorithms for turning a song into an MP3 file are proprietary, encumbered with copyrights, licensing rules, codicils about first-born children (you'll find that out soon enough) and so forth. Ogg files come with none of that, because its algorithms were developed the same way Linux was developed: a distributed hive of geeks worked in their spare time to do what needed to be done, and they released the result as liberated software.

I found out the hard way that Windows beats Mac hands-down when it comes to options for playing and encoding Ogg files. There used to be a plugin that enabled Ogg playback in iTunes, but it doesn't work on Tiger or Quicktime 7. Audion was pretty good but didn't have all the music library management features. Now someone has done the work, and Ogg works in iTunes again.

If iPods ever play Ogg files, I might just buy one.

Also, I managed to fix my MP3 player (one of the few that also plays Ogg files) with a twist tie.

This makes me even more loathe to own a car. From what I gather, most automotive problems can't be fixed using twist-ties, or even duct tape.

Also, Harvey Danger is giving away their latest album online. They're the guys that wrote that "Flagpole Sitta" song last century. It's a good album, distributed via BitTorrent and available in Ogg format.