Why fully absorb a book when you can just have it smashed against your brain?
Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
21–30 of 129 posts
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#22Btw this silence removal feature for youtube videos is available in newpipe and libretube for android and skip silence browser extension
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#23I like listening to audio on >1x but those no sound gaps are important for me, as they let me catch up my thought to the audio, incase I lose track.
So, either I could listen to audio, using this tool, but keep the speed 1x, OR use >1x speed but not use this tool (i.e. keep the gaps).
Cannot do both.
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#24What's the point of listening to 3 books per day? You need time to digest the ideas in a book.
Sometimes I listen to one chapter in a book and I need a whole day to digest it: I get into a state where I don't want to listen to _any_ music, etc.
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#25"This tool won’t be appropriate for all audiobook listeners. For many, the silences matter, and removing them would degrade the quality of the book. For many, listening at 2.5x would also degrade the quality of the book. So use this tool with caution." It's nice that this was also brought up. At least for me, even though I don't listen to audiobooks, it's too easy to become too "performance-oriented" when reading som…
>audiobooks, it's too easy to become too "performance-oriented" when reading something. Meaning that ticking the box "achievement unlocked, read another book" becomes more important than what you really get out of the book. Did you now retain as much information as possible?
You're expressing a common skepticism of 2x+ speedup but it misunderstands why people do it. It actually improves the presentation to 200+ wpm so the brain is more receptive to learning. The slower ~100 wpm (i.e. 1x speed) acted as a barrier to learning. I tried to explain the 2x+ advantage previously and how blind people had utilized this technique years before the general public did:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29661550
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29660750
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29665690
The motivations for speedup mostly applies to non-fiction audiobooks. For fiction, you may deliberately leave it at 1x because you want the deliberate pacing of the voice acting in addition to the info conveyed by the bare text.
Audio playback speed adjustment is just a tool. If you're a musician trying to learn a complicated guitar lick or drum fill, slow the music down to 0.5x or even 0.25x if that helps unlock it. If you're listening to Lord of the Rings, then playing it at 1x seems very reasonable. If you're listening to a speaker discussing inflation for an hour but keep tuning out because he talks too slow, speed him up to 4x if you have to so the information is presented at the higher speed your that brain prefers receiving it.
EDIT to replies to clarify "The slower ~100 wpm (i.e. 1x speed) acted as a barrier to learning."
This statement in isolation looks like an absolute science claim that 1x causes "zero learning" but of course that wasn't what I was saying. The context is "barrier to _optimal_ learning" for that particular reader. If 1x is too slow and makes some readers not stay mentally engaged, or abandon audiobooks, or leave podcasts/lectures in the queue and never listen to them, that's the "barrier to learning" that I'm trying to convey.
Likewise, if one needs to slow it down to 1/2 speed to comprehend difficult-to-parse text, that also meant 1x was too fast and also a barrier to optimal learning.
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#26"This tool won’t be appropriate for all audiobook listeners. For many, the silences matter, and removing them would degrade the quality of the book. For many, listening at 2.5x would also degrade the quality of the book. So use this tool with caution." It's nice that this was also brought up. At least for me, even though I don't listen to audiobooks, it's too easy to become too "performance-oriented" when reading som…
I would say that to have read a text is not the goal, it's a mere implementation detail. The goal is to understand ideas which the text tries to convey. Some texts, and usual human speech, are low-density, high-redundancy. If you can easily understand the ideas they carry, you can listen at a really high speed and still don't miss anything, and later be able to adequately recall the ideas. Some texts are either highe…
So. Assuming we are talking about non fiction. Why would you read a book that you don't really expect to learn anything new from?
Further, your supposed use case of audio books is when you're driving, when most of your attention should be spent... Driving.
As for fiction, efficiency totally misses the point. Efficiency isn't reading Harry potter as fast as possible. Efficiency is not reading it at all.
My most charitable interpretation is that we just have different aims when it comes to consuming literature, but that still leads back to the ops point that this is basically the gamification of book reading.
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#27I love listening to audiobooks at 1.5x-2x speed while I'm walking outside. I can get through 100 books a year this way. Of course I don't take notes or think deeply about the content. Who needs that? In fact, I have no idea which books I've read this year! Or last year! All I want is cross stuff off my vanity to-do list consisting of books collected from HN and get a feeling of accomplishment. And I can tell others about it! 100 books a year! /s
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#28Lifehack: watch trailers instead of the movies and you can get through 50 in a day easy!
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#29I love listening to audiobooks at 1.5x-2x speed while I'm walking outside. I can get through 100 books a year this way. Of course I don't take notes or think deeply about the content. Who needs that? In fact, I have no idea which books I've read this year! Or last year! All I want is cross stuff off my vanity to-do list consisting of books collected from HN and get a feeling of accomplishment. And I can tell others a…
100 books a year? Those are rookie numbers!
Don't forget that you have two ears, why not listen to two books simultaneously? Left ear can have personal life hack books and right ear can have business books
Re: Fastbook: Listen to audiobooks faster (2020)
#30I listen on 1.2x on Spotify and 1.3x on Audible (has more fine grained control) and it just sounds normal after a little while. I tried 1.5x and it was tough to follow.
My wife thinks I'm insane anytime she hears the audio. It's interesting that there seems to be some training component to ramping up speed.