super-structure

Monday, May 12, 2008

Since I’ve been all about listening to audiobooks lately (actually, for the past year - just more recently of the fantasy genre), this link was pretty timely. Using some of the integrated Apple services and some scripting, macOSXhints user miketyson put together a Service in OS X to simply convert highlighted text to an Audiobook and add to the iTunes library. I gave it a try with a webpage in Safari (the Speech → Start speaking text service doesn’t work in Firefox) and the result was pretty easy to listen to. The new Alex voice in 10.5 helps, though I don’t know if I could listen to an entire book this way. However, it’d be perfect for those longer New Yorker (and the like) articles I never seem to have time to read. It would certainly be nice to have this Service automatically switch the AAC encoding to “Spoken Podcast” instead of having to switch to iTunes and change the setting manually. I’ll inevitably forget to switch it back and end up with some really awful sounding music files, no doubt. [0 # ]

The Peacock Network was once a bastion for drama and comedy. Those days are long gone, with only a few bright spots in an otherwise abysmal line-up (Scrubs, My Name is Earl, and The Office being most of those highlights). Recently, they announced that Universal (NBC and USA Networks parent company) were moving Monk and Psych from USA to NBC, as if that was going be a good thing for those shows. Why find new shows or talent when you can just bring some up from the minor leagues? Just the other evening, we saw some commercials for four new shows this summer on NBC: all were reality/contest shows (including American Gladiator, which pretty much sucked the first go around). Now, comes an announcement that they are going to start crafting shows around sponsor’s products. Of course, that’s assuming any advertisers are even considering spending money at NBC. [1 # ]

I’m pretty sure that this trailer for a Legend of Zelda movie is just an (elaborate) hoax. However, like some other April Fool’s Day pranks, I find myself hoping that it is the real thing. [1 # ]

- I think Photoshop Express would more accurately be called Lightroom Express. #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
[0 # ]

- @robknight: Good god, that’s one huge cat belleh. Is that where the mouse hid? In the folds of cat? #
- Becoming more painfully obvious to me that the "standards movement" consists of designers, and not scientists, engineers, or (tech) writers. #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
[0 # ]

- @trey: Yes, though I guess it was only a matter of time before this started happening. The kid’s pretty good. #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
[0 # ]
Just a brief congratulations to my pal Kevin O’ for having a photo of his selected by the editors at Wired magazine as one of their picks for best self portrait. Of course, you’d never know it was Kevin in the photo… maybe that’s why they liked it? Anyway, it’s a cool picture and I’m glad they recognized it. [1 # ]

- At the in-laws for the Easter. They watched the dogs for us while we were in CA. Good to see the ‘rents & pooches. #
- @leolaporte Years without coffee? Welcome back from the wilderness. #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
[0 # ]

- @postpostmodern: I’m sure more people than you realize are looking forward to that. #
Powered by Twitter Tools.
[0 # ]
Lone Bonobo - photo by Jason Coleman. I posted a number of photos from last Saturday’s trip to the San Diego Zoo over at Flickr yesterday. I suggest watching the slideshow to view them.

[0 # ]