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The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

marhamilresearch4.blob.core.windows.net

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Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#111

Post by data_ders »

freeplay wrote: post #63
Brajeshwar wrote: post #61

I'm curious about the sub-domain https://marhamilresearch4.blob.core.windows.net . Are these auto-generated? I'm guessing these style of subdomains are not named by a human.

Looks like Azure Blob Storage and 'marhamilresearch4' is the name of the storage account (think website hosted in a public S3 bucket). Azure requires these names are globally unique and only allows alphanumerics.

this is likely Mark Hamilton's static site deployed from his own blob storage account https://github.com/mhamilton723

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#112

Post by MKTSPCLST »

janekm wrote: post #29
xrd wrote: post #20

When I read Rikki Tikki Tavi to my 8 yr old daughter, we play a game. She asks me to change one of the words in the page and she tries to listen and see if she can figure it out. It is mentally taxing at the end of a long day to do that on the fly without pausing to figure out the word to slip in. And, my daughter is very sharp and catches them. I listened to a few of these. The voice sounds muted at times, as if the…

Elevenlabs is a lot closer to compelling audiobook narration (needs a better way to deal with multiple characters in a story without manual use of multiple voices): https://pub-a24da573c61f4b2d905bdebb2d0ecf88.r2.dev/ElevenLa... (an H.G.Wells example I just asked it to read).

[dead]

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#113

Post by letmevoteplease »

davidzweig wrote: post #50

Oh, snap, we've been working on importing Gutenburg to LR: https://www.languagereactor.com/m/t_en_- We're ranking them using the download count, and also this prompt to chatGPT (it's primarily for language learners): "Is this text engaging and interesting for a modern reader, someone not into fine literature? Rate the text excellent, good, ok or poor. I don't want crusty, flowery, contorted language, talking about bu…

Just for fun, here's what happens to Pride and Prejudice:

User: Rewrite and simplify the following text for a modern audience: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters."

ChatGPT: "People generally believe that a rich single guy must be looking for a wife. Even if we don't really know what he's thinking when he moves to a new area, everyone assumes he's up for grabs by one of the local girls."

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#114

Post by [deleted] »

jtbayly wrote: post #92
Pxtl wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> H.G. Wells was read with a pause in between each period because it "thinks" that each letter boundary is a sentence change This is why I'm a firm "two spaces after the period" guy. Makes it unambiguous the difference between the abbrevs. period and the sentence-end period. Otherwise you get sentences like "Let's not forget that Dr. Principal does not care about this." which can be read in two valid ways.

How does it feel to have websites and books and newspapers and practically every other place silently ignore your double spaces and treat them as a single space?

[deleted]

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#115

Post by cxr »

bloak wrote: post #69
cxr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This trick doesn't work across linebreaks (unless you adopt a rule like "treat the spaces in the nouns as non-breaking and do not permit a linebreak for anything that isn't a sentence boundary").

Emacs does (or did) exactly that, perhaps by default: I think I had to disable it once because it was annoying me ... (setq sentence-end-double-space nil)?

Not the same thing.

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#116

Post by darknavi »

cush wrote: post #108

The audio book for Project Hail Mary is brilliantly done with amazing voice acting and even uses effects on Rocky’s voice to emphasize his musicality. Listening to a good audio book is like listening to the perfect film adaptation - it adds to the reading experience. There’s a long, long way to go for AI to learn emotion before I’d spend 20+ hours listening to a book read by one.

Great example. I agree that Ray Porter knocked it out of the park with that book.

Listen to this. Apple must of licensed his voice and while it is impressive, it goes to show how dead-pan the voice still is.

"Mitchell, a digital voice"

https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-aud...

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#117

Post by swores »

thinkmassive wrote: post #99
prepend wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Audible is $15/month and you get to choose one title. I think you’re confusing audible today with audible of 20 years ago.

I typically buy at least two titles per month, and the best deal ended up being: Audible Premium Plus - 1 Credit Every Other Month for $17 ($8.50/mo) You can buy 3 more credits for $37.99 (12.66/ea). It’s also worth checking individual titles because quite a few cost less than the credits. Correction: I guess I actually buy slightly fewer than 2/mo because there’s a plan for that ($22.95/mo) that’s cheaper than the 2…

You probably won't be interested since it's even more pressure to use them before they expire, but there's also annual plans which are even cheaper if you can be happy using 12 (or 24) tokens within 12 months (you get them at the start and they expire at the end of the year):

Audible Premium Plus Annual - 12 Credits $149.50/year (way cheaper in UK: £69.99/year)

Audible Premium Plus Annual - 24 Credits $229.50/year (£109.99/year)

US: https://www.audible.com/ep/memberbenefits UK: https://help.audible.co.uk/s/article/what-are-the-different-...

Although, as soon as I'm logged in with my account (UK) which had subscribed in the past but isn't currently, it doesn't seem to be giving me any options except to start a 1 month free trial for 1 token/month, not sure if other options aren't available or just extremely well hidden...

edit: no it is available for my account, though I'm going to remain a non-subscriber and keep using my local digital library :)

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#118

Post by m463 »

jzb wrote: post #91
ecshafer wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like Louis CK said: "Everything is amazing and no one is happy." Everything is not amazing. Sure things are amazing from a technical perspective. But most tech advancements I think have been harmful to society in the last 30 years or so. Its awesome that computers are so powerful and we have awesome video and photos and can share things so easily. But technology should better lives, and not cheapen it, which it oft…

I forget the exact quote but the thing I've seen making the rounds sums it up pretty well: Computers were supposed to do the work so people could make art and write poetry. Now the computers are making art and writing poetry and I still have to have a job. In another life I'd love to do voice over work. (I even have a face for radio!) But, instead, technology is being used to avoid even having humans do that type of…

> Every advance in AI is "how can we replace people and save money?"

I think what happens is that the repeat jobs are automated, and the (remaining) people get the hard corner cases.

Re: The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection

#120

Post by karmelapple »

ecshafer wrote: post #48
xrd wrote: post #20

When I read Rikki Tikki Tavi to my 8 yr old daughter, we play a game. She asks me to change one of the words in the page and she tries to listen and see if she can figure it out. It is mentally taxing at the end of a long day to do that on the fly without pausing to figure out the word to slip in. And, my daughter is very sharp and catches them. I listened to a few of these. The voice sounds muted at times, as if the…

> Like Louis CK said: "Everything is amazing and no one is happy." Everything is not amazing. Sure things are amazing from a technical perspective. But most tech advancements I think have been harmful to society in the last 30 years or so. Its awesome that computers are so powerful and we have awesome video and photos and can share things so easily. But technology should better lives, and not cheapen it, which it oft…

I'd suggest reading How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell [1]. I think it addresses some of the concerns you have.

1. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/42771901

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