The iPod as Filesystem!

One of my complaints about the iPod is that, unlike the Rockbox and related technologies, the iPod is completely dependent upon the iTunes database for navigation. It was impossible to just dump files into the iPod and get them to work the way you want.

Was. The absolutely coolest project came across my virtual desk this morning: FusePod. Linux has long had the capability to support FUSE, the Filesystem In Userspace project, which can take anything that can rationally be described as a heirarchy (and the iTunes.db does that) and lays it out as a filesystem, so that all the traditional and well-evolved filesystem tools can be used on it.

It works wonderfully. You mount the iPod as a filesytem normally, and looking into that path you see the usual iTunes.db-mangled layout. You then run fusepod, giving it both that path and a new mountpoint as arguments, and when you look at that new mountpoint you see the iTunes.db as the filesystem, like so:

# ls /mnt/music/ 
Albums/  Artists/  Playlists/     add_songs   sync_ipod.sh* 
All/     Genre/    add_files.sh*  statistics
 

That's so cool I could just squee.

Using it is still a little twonky. You have to write the file paths into the symbolic link thing "add_songs," which is kinda like a directory and kinda not. It's a write-only path; when you check files into it, they appear in the other parts of the filesystem where they belong, under "Album", "Artists", and so on. Unfortunately, as of version 0.4, this doesn't happen automatically; you have to call a program to sync this wishlist with the on-pod iTunes.db before you unmount, but this is most definitely the correct step in the correct direction.

[Edit] Even better: There's now an unofficial gentoo ebuild for it! I installed it by hand, but this is just as good.

The Unbelievability of GTD

One of the things that happens (to me, at least) with GTD is that I find myself at a loose end precisely because the To-Do list is empty. I reach the stage where I have nothing to be anxious about; everything is under control. When this happens, though, I get anxious again: I must be missing something. And because I must be missing something, the system isn't working. And since the system isn't working, I stop using it, and boom, the old (and comfortably familiar) anxiety comes back.

I find I do the same thing with programming. Although I'm not allowed to use Literate Programming by fiat where I work, there are LP techniques that I can apply to everyday programming. But I don't use them until I'm at my wit's end ("You are in a maze of twisty passages, all different") and remember "Oh, yeah, go literate, comment heavily, when you're stuck you've found out where something is wrong."

It's really annoying. I must find a way to stop thinking these ways.

Those extra two minutes are hard!

Last week, I tried to do two meditation sessions of ten minutes each. I succeeded during the weekdays, but didn't keep up on the weekends. This week, I've made them two sessions of twelve minutes each. Those extra two minutes are hard!. I really noticed how much longer the sessions seem to be.

I'm also not sure they're doing me all that much good. I feel better after I do them, especially if I try the square breathing trick, but it's hard to say that I actually am in any way improved by them.