Damn all paywalls! I hate them hate them hate them hate them hate them! I don't want everything to be free, but I want to be able to read days, weeks or even years old news stories online without having to sign up to a monthly subscription when I might never visit that paper again! If you're putting older stories online, anyone should be able to read them. If you want paying, charge for hot stories, it's not that damn hard!
Still thinking about this AI voices thing. I've found one of those samples I did of something I've been writing on and off for a good while. This might cause a smile if nothing else, because this is a sample of my voice reading this thing, except that when we put up this vocal sample Eleven Labs generator managed to kind of pseudo americanise me which was handy as this books set in a kind of distopian what used to be America. The accent goes wrong sometimes, the volume isn't even which is my fault because I was using a hand held mic, the expression could have been done much better by a proper American actress, but it's very listenable to, or at least I thought so. Caution with the attached audio, it contains some strong language.
I just read an interesting article about AI voices making audiobooks possible more quickly at lower costs, especially for self-publishing authors. I agree basically with what it says, which is that an AI voice can never replicate human immotions in the way that a real person can. Having said that, I did some experiments with Eleven Labs when I first heard about it with stuff I'd been writing, and while it's far from perfect, it didn't do a bad job, and I gave it passages where a lot of expression is needed because I wanted to test it. A human reader of course could do way better, but the result I got didn't sound like a machine or a speech synthesizer reading a screen, and to be able to have a book in audio at the same time everyone else can read it without having to wait three, six months, maybe even more is a good thing in my book. Also, I've heard readings of audiobooks by real people that I wouldn't have made a dog listen to and deeply resent having had to pay Audible's prices for! So I think there's going to be a place for AI narators in the future for sure, and I'd like to see a lot of the dreadful, awful, hopeless narators in the industry forced to do something different, if I'm honest.
It's amazing the things you can learn about from books, I don't just mean facts and figures. In a novel I was reading once I heard about a firm that made extract of lime aftershave. Actually they make a whole set of toiletries with that smell. I really dislike the smell of men's toiletries normally, so I got some for @brianhartgen to try and he's used it ever since. It's the only smell of men's toiletries I really absolutely love.
@menelion That's what it's called, extract of lime. It's made by a special firm in London, I don't know if it's available anywhere else but you can certainly look.
With the greatest respect, how you present yourself on here is totally up to you, but if you're going to put long, complicated emojis on either side of your display name your posts are going to take a long time to read with a screenreader, it's just easier to skip. I want to read your thoughts, or anything else you post, not have to spend thirty seconds reading your name. Just a thought.
@objectinspace@lulu_bear Or, people could just be better at sensitivity to things outside of their cultural norms. A string of emojis is not a universally accessible way to display yourself. Just because I can change a setting in my client to remove emojis doesn’t mean I should. The responsibility shouldn’t always have to be on the affected disabled person to accommodate things. This attitude is part of the problem I’m afraid.
I just came across a BBC radio serial I used to like called Crown House. My word what a cast! You wouldn't be able to hire half of Martin Jarvis's left kneecap on the budget they have nowadays, that's why he does radio productions via his own company. Anyway, I was so glad to get this back again, it reminds me of the heady days of the late eighties early nineties when radio was still worth listening to and we were beginning to be able to buy plays and serials on cassette! No more bits missing while we turned the tape over. No more crackle. No more putting the radio into mono to get rid of the stereo hiss. Ok, usually heavy editing but that was livable with. But this one isn't edited now, they've released it in all eight parts. Happy making.