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+--- Thread: Geek solution! (/showthread.php?tid=753)
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Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-07-2008
After consideration, it only makes sense to render the original book to audio because all the other stuff is too time consuming. From what I see, the other similar books on centralfixation.com are just re-statements of what Bates said all along. The magazines are really great, but rendering all of them would be a real hassle. I may just go with Stories from the Clinic as it is excerpts. All the magazines are, however, is simply the original Bates principles at work.
Things are easier when you choose the best, simplest, easiest path.
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-07-2008
If anyone knows where I can upload the files to without having to spend a lot of time starting my own server or anything, let me know. Perhaps someone already has a site?
I'll experiment with bit rates of 192, 128, 64, 32, 24, and 16 and see which is optimal for size/quality balance. Of course these would be .mp3's- no .wav's or .ogg's
The books are Perfect Sight Without Glasses and Stories from the Clinic. This should be all I or anyone needs apart from experience, patience, determination, etc.
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-08-2008
After about a 15 hour palming session, I find that my pride has seemed to vanish, and I realized that I am no where near as smart as I thought I was. So that's one reason I'm downloading loads of content like language podcasts, philosophy textbooks, stories, etc. I now find that I have an INTEREST in LIFE, which seems odd after so many years of being neither alive nor dead.
So far the original Bates book turned out great. I'll be rendering it using several voices but the one I did is very clear and even has some emotion (maybe that's only in my mind).
Re: Geek solution! - Jason - 04-08-2008
Whohlme,
It's interesting that you said you are now interested in life, because it was only after I did the Bates method for a few months that I became much more interested in literally everything. I actually realized that part of my strain was the fact that I was constantly trying to make my life perfect, but I realized that my life was already perfect and I should just experience it. You don't have to live your life with effort, just let things come and make the most you can out of them, have an incredibly great time, and most important of all - do not try to do things quickly. I've actually realized that when I try to do things verrry slow and easy, I actually go extremely fast!!!!! :o
For people like us that have a tendency to strain our eyes and our minds, even short moments of mental relaxation seems intensely euphoric. Err...I meant in my personal experience anyway.
But dang, if it's true with everybody, just imagine how much fun all those perfect-sighted people are having! When it comes down to it though, I believe that by no means people with normal eyes have perfect sight all the time. They are constantly looking at things they have not seen before (as well as all the other things that cause mental strain...you'll know more about what I mean after reading/listening to Bates' book), which causes temporary mental strain.So just imagine how you'll feel after you've obtained a perfect memory, perfect imagination, and perfect sight PERMANENTLY, at all times!!!
And the cool thing is, in order to achieve this, all you have to do is remember a perfectly black dot!.
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-09-2008
It has also been a few months for me. I started around mid January.
Re: Geek solution! - Kazekage - 04-09-2008
Quote:I'll be rendering it using several voices but the one I did is very clear and even has some emotion (maybe that's only in my mind).
Hey could you tell me what software you are using?
The one that comes on my home computer is so crap! The one that's on the Apple Macs at school are a little bit better but not much.
I think it will be useful for me, not for listening to Bates (you have to READ Bates to feel the real true spirit, trust me!) but some other stuff I have in mind.
And, stay away from i-see.org. It's full of BS
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-09-2008
I know, the stock versions on window$ and mac are really bad. Since I run Linux, I have way more choices. I'm using the programs E-speak and Festival, each of which have several voices. To give a basic idea, Festival is very close to the AT&T Natural voices which you have to pay for, in other words it's nice and smooth and not harsh. E-speak is not as soft on the ear, but the enunciation is clearer and it's probably better for perfect recognition of words. Since I use both, I don't worry about it. I just render using any number I see fit and burn 'em to CD. Then I use LAME to compress to an .mp3. You can go as low as 8 kbps, but that's really pushing it as far as quality goes. I'd say 24 kbps is good, as it's just speech.
I believe there are windows versions of one or both of these programs. For mp3 encoding you could use Audacity.
You can play with a demo of Festival at:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://festvox.org/voicedemos.html">http://festvox.org/voicedemos.html</a><!-- m -->
although it seems to have trouble in Windows...
info about espeak is at: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://espeak.sourceforge.net/index.html">http://espeak.sourceforge.net/index.html</a><!-- m -->
there is a windows version of Festival but I don't know where to download it from. you'll have to do some searching.
I had a feeling that I-see was iffy, thanks for the heads up.
There's a possibility I could make the audio books for you and email them to you, depending on how much text you have and when you need it.
Re: Geek solution! - Kazekage - 04-09-2008
Awesome, thanks.
I use Linux too, it's UBUNTU dual booted with Windows XP, but I hardly use it (out of preference and being so accustomed to windows).I'm going to get SABAYON because that looks like a good distro and so does Debian. Then I'll triple/quad boot them altogether, LOL.
Yeah, Windows default programs rather suck.
I'll be sure to check out the programs you mentioned .
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-09-2008
Here are the precise commands you use to make your audio book:
for flite:
make sure you have the package installed via package manager or other. then
Code:
$ flite [your_text_file.txt] [your_wave_file.wav]this will make the .wav file, which will probably be huge! then use lame to encode the mp3 like this:
Code:
$ lame -b (bitrate here) file.wav file.mp3to get espeak to generate a .wav do this:
Code:
$ espeak -f file.txt -w file.wavif you want an american style voice then make sure to include the -v en-rhotic argument. use lame as specified above.
This will leave you with a compact mp3 file.
hope that helps.
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-11-2008
Just wondering:
there seem to actually be a lot of online free versions of the original book. Does anyone know which one is the best, comparatively?
Re: Geek solution! - marlon - 04-12-2008
Oleg K. is brutally honest ;D
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-12-2008
Ok cool. I ordered a paperback copy of the original book from amazon.
I also got the following texts from the web and am making them into audio:
Perfect Sight Without Glasses, Use Your Own Eyes, Stories From the Clinic, and all the Articles from Iblindness.org and central-fixation.com
I considered also doing all the magazines, but i think i'll save those for last. The only source for those is central-fixation.com, right? at least in text form, pdf's are not suitable for these purposes.
Re: Geek solution! - Whohlme - 04-12-2008
I will not be doing the magazines at this time as it would just be too time consuming and I already have the book form. Besides, in no time I will be able to read them visually in the sunlight
I'll listen to the other stuff while the original gets here...that pretty much finishes this post.