"Crater Lake"

By Louise Glück
Posted Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2006, at 6:33 AM ET

Click here to listen to Louise Glück read this poem.

Ah, I'd love to do it, lads, but you won't let me. See, even though Microsoft sold Slate to the Washington Post well over a year ago, Slate insists on releasing these recordings in Wimdows Media Audio 10 format - a format that can only be played on Windows. Microsoft's late Windows Media Player for Macintosh did not play Windows Audio 10, nor do the Flip4Mac Windows Media components for QuickTime that Microsoft is now giving away instead of the player. You can click on the link or even download the file on Mac OS X, but nothing will play it.

Every time Microsoft complains about the "closed" iPod system, remember that iTunes for Windows can play every track that goes on an iPod. Microsoft, however, has always kept Windows Media for Mac one major version behind the Windows releases.

Using a proprietary, Windows-onlyformat is what Redmond considers "open" and "customer choice." I'd have posted this to Slate's "the Fray" forum, but doing that requires signing up for a Microsoft Passport, and either I don't have one or I can't remember what it is, and given the security problems they've had, I don't want a new one. Oh well.