The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion
Introductions
>
Daily Chit Chat
message 1551:
by
Thomas
(new)
May 15, 2023 06:23AM
Text-to-voice screen readers have their place. They allow for faster listening and can be used on almost any e-book. I have a blind friend who can comprehend his screen reader at more than 600 wpm. I read most Kindle books with the iPhone's voice-over app, bad as it is.
reply
|
flag
I'm also a fan of the faster listening speed, usually 1.5x. I used to listen to the 'fast' speed on my MP3 player even though it didn't compensate the voice so the pitch was raised. I've never cared for the mechanical voices, though. I find their lack of proper pacing, emotion, & emphasis too distracting.
New Project Uses AI To Turn Project Gutenberg Texts Into Free Audiobooks With Lifelike Voices — In 30 Secondshttps://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/20/n...
They work better on some books than others. One of the issues even when I had a few of my books narrated by (lovely) humans is that I use a lot of dialogue - on the page it is clear who is speaking if it alternates, but as audio by an AI it can become super confusing when there are no dialogue tags.
All 6 of the Zelazny NESFA books are for sale as ebooks now for $9.95 each. They're well worth it. https://www.nesfa.org/press/author/?a...
Jim wrote: "All 6 of the Zelazny NESFA books are for sale as ebooks now for $9.95 each. They're well worth it. https://www.nesfa.org/press/author/?a..."
$9.95 is a sale price now for ebooks? I thought it is their ordinary price... but thanks for the link, now I have to fight with my inner Scrooge :)
For sale as in available, not special pricing. Up to now, the books have only been available in HB at $25 or more. It's a great collection & worthy of HB. The covers make up one entire painting by an excellent cover artist & the books contain all of Zelazny's work except for some novels which is great since so much of his stuff isn't readily available. There are explanations & background material, too.
I second Papaphilly, even if Zelazny, like I guess most authors, has stronger and weaker works, on average he is a genre giant
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? got a review on Ars Technica today. Looks interesting.https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/...
Thanks for the link to the review, Jim. It does look to be an interesting book, and I've put a hold on the audiobook edition at one of my libraries (unfortunately there's an 18 week wait).
You're welcome. Only 1 of my libraries has it, but I'm only #8 in the queue with 2 copies available. Hopefully my wait won't be too long.
Definitely an interesting non-fic, Jim, thanks
My son turned me on to ReadEra, an app that turns a variety of ebook type documents into audiobooks. It's great & I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to narrators. This did a great job, though. Finding the right voice was tough since only 1 had a label that made sense, but I found one that is certainly tolerable out of the dozen offered in the free version. Speed control in that, too. Yay! I bought the premium for $10. I didn't needed it, but I wanted to support such fantastic work. I have an Android phone & got it from Google Play.
I'm using ReadEra for years, just for reading ebooks in all formats. It's a great reader.
These adaptive eyeglass lenses look cool. Instead of carrying around sunglasses & readers, one pair will switch between both. On top of that, the magnification of the readers can be changed as the person ages & needs more.https://www.dezeen.com/2023/11/22/32-...
At first blush, this looks awesome. I've always had perfect vision, so it was quite a change for me when I needed readers in my mid 40s. At first they were prescription since one eye changed more than the other, but they evened out in a decade or so & the prescription grew stronger. I started needing sunglasses, though. Now I have half a dozen pairs of glasses around; readers & sunglasses everywhere they might be needed.
That's the rub. My glasses are all over-the-counter now & I treat them that way. They get lost & scratched up fairly often which I couldn't afford with these new glasses.
AN ALERT for anyone who logs in through FACEBOOKFrom tomorrow you won't be able to do this any more! The alternatives are through Amazon, Apple or your email.
I only found out about this today. Even though the notice is dated 6th November, and I have been on Goodreads every single day since then, it only came up when I tried today 🙄 So I hope nobody here gets caught out. It would be difficult to alert the Goodreads technicians about it if you couldn't log in ...
I'm trying to post this in all the groups I'm a member of. But mods, please move this to wherever you think it fits best!
Jim wrote: "These adaptive eyeglass lenses look cool. Instead of carrying around sunglasses & readers, one pair will switch between both. On top of that, the magnification of the readers can be changed as the ..."Cool. Let us know if you try them!
I'm waiting for an appt for cataract surgery, and will likely sign up for some of the extra-cost options for that. But I will still need sunglasses! And maybe readers?
Amazon competes with its own Goodreads with launch of book discovery service, ‘Your Books’https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/13/ama...
Jim wrote: "Amazon competes with its own Goodreads with launch of book discovery service, ‘Your Books’https://techcrunch.com/2023/12/13/ama......"
I thought amazon owns Goodreads.
Papaphilly wrote: "I thought amazon owns Goodreads.."Yes it does, that's what surprised Jim I gues
Oleksandr wrote: "Yes it does, that's what surprised Jim I gues"No surprise, just disgust. Amazon could have made GR shine, but it deemphasized groups & shrank support which ruined it. The latest interface change didn't help, either.
Here's another article from the NYT about the tragedy of GR.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/24/op...
Mod
Thanks, Natalie.Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it!
My end of year gift was a video card update yesterday morning that hosed my PC. I had to reinstall Windows then spend the rest of the day reinstalling every program. The recovery provided a list of software removed & it was 1.5 pages of small type. It was a long day & I'm still tweaking the OS & various programs with my preferences.It went smoother & faster than expected. I've had this happen numerous times over the 30 plus years I've been using & supporting it, so I've been careful to keep all my installation files easily accessible. I did have a bad few moments when my Quicken 2000 CD couldn't be read by my USB CD/DVD reader. I had to use an old PC to make a copy. I guess I shouldn't have expected a 25 year old CD to still work flawlessly.
My biggest back up failure so far is my Word basic template, the normal.dot. That's going to haunt me for a while. I was pleasantly surprised to find my Oracle XP VM survived just fine & worked once I'd reinstalled VirtualBox. I'll have to wait until my son-in-law gets back from vacation to reinstall my Linux VM.
It sounds like you had a very busy day, Jim.
A frustrating one. Does anyone remember the old joke comparing operating systems to airlines?DOS airlines (yes, it's that old):
You show up at the grubby gate along with all the other passengers & get herded out to the tarmac where you toss your luggage on the plane. Everyone pushes, it takes off & you hop on while it glides for a while before you have to do it again.
Windows airlines:
You find a gleaming gate area & are ushered aboard a new, sleek jet. It takes off into the sky. It blows up.
MAC airlines:
You get to an area with a lot of gates & wait to board while staring at all the pretty jets. You're ushered aboard by nice looking young people who all look alike with plastic smiles on their faces. As you're seated, you ask, "But where are we going?"
The answer, "You don't need to know."
Unix airlines:
Everyone shows up & walks out onto the tarmac carrying their own parts. There they put together 20 planes & fly off in every direction.
OS2 airlines: (I doubt anyone remembers it anymore.) You'd look at the pretty jets & ask when are we boarding. They'd tell you soon, but you never did.
Jim wrote: "...MAC airlines:...As you're seated, you ask, "But where are we going?"
The answer, "You don't need to know."..."
Oh this sums up Apple in general. Hilarious! Thank you for sharing that Jim.
I've been reading Mike Elgan's column for decades & he rarely fails to amuse. In his latest email, I found this in the "Brilliantly Bad Ideas" section.A company called Futureverse launched Readyverse Studios, co-founded by Ready Player One novelist Ernest Cline, as well as Shara Senderoff, Aaron McDonald and Dan Farah. The company is partnering with WarnerBros Discovery. Their first product will be The Readyverse, which will have a virtual world called “Ready Player One.” The company plans to “bring the Ready Player One franchise to the metaverse across web3.” Klein said that the venture would “lead us into the next chapter of our collective future… a future that would make Wade Watts and James Halliday proud.” Never mind that the “metaverse” from science fiction is always a dystopian nightmare. In fact, Ready Player One depicted a dystopian nightmare, where the real world goes to hell because everyone is addicted to a virtual reality fantasy world privately owned by a billionaire. After warning us about the horror of a virtual-first world, why would Kline want to build one? (Answer: Because he wants to be the billionaire.)
Mod
She sounds like an interesting person, though I personally don't plan to read this book. There is an article in a local news site, from which I found the following info that is relevant to this group:
“She helped write some of Jack London’s books,” said Dunkle. After reading Jack London’s Valley of the Moon, Dunkle was amazed at how well he wrote his female characters. Through her research for Charmian’s biography, Dunkle discovered that Charmian had written the women’s parts.
https://www.berkeleyside.org/2024/01/...
Not sure which thread is most appropriate for this but I came across a description of how Ukrainians are using domestic software to help triage their response to missile attack alarms: https://denysdovhan.com/home-assistan...Sounds like something out of a sci fi novel! Perhaps our resident Ukrainian member is able to corroborate (and I hope they are able to keep safe and hopeful as events progress).
Sabri wrote: "Sounds like something out of a sci fi novel! Perhaps our resident Ukrainian member is able to corroborate (and I hope they are able to keep safe and hopeful as events progress).."
This invasion is a crazy mix of old and new. Currently, say the most endangered large city (2nd largest before the invasion, population over 1mn ) is Kharkiv because it is less than 50 miles from the border and is bombed with WW2 anti-bunker bombs, which glide on a new contraption - a glider wings with GPS, dropped from heavy bomber planes. These bombs have over 3000 kg of explosives (most missiles about 100-200 kg, suicide drones about 70 kg, because they have to have a lot of fuel to fly), so even if a shelter you can receive a shock-wave traumas.
Oleksandr wrote: "Sabri wrote: "Sounds like something out of a sci fi novel! Perhaps our resident Ukrainian member is able to corroborate (and I hope they are able to keep safe and hopeful as events progress).."
T..."
Very interesting info. I heard this week that there was a successful strike on some of Russia's missile launchers, which has hopefully caused a bit of a lull in the Kharkiv bombardment.
On a separate note - I used to enjoy lurking and reading Jim's life updates in this thread and feel like it would be a shame to let it become inactive as is threatening to happen. So I thought I'd put a little update from myself.I'm finally getting back into reading at a decent rate 11 months after becoming a new father to baby boy Ralph. All those hackneyed sayings about parenthood are more or less true; it's a total change to one's lifestyle and there's only so much you can do to prepare. The first few months in particular I found hugely challenging (as well as rewarding) due to the feeding and sleeping journey. Gradually it got easier and I got used to carrying on with just a few hours sleep if necessary. For the last few months my partner and I have consistently been able to get some book-reading time in everyday, even if it's just 20 minutes in bed before "sleeping".
Would be keen to hear from any other readers that remember going through early parenthood, what it was like and how it impacted their reading.
when my kids were that little, spending days with them meant that I had to keep my attention at them. And sometimes could do something else next to it, but not reading a book - I need my concentration for that. So if I read during daytime it was newspapers and magazines. Except for holidays, I still do a lot of my book reading in bed, before sleeping. Reading and kids btw, we're having a very difficult time to get ours to read a book. When I was young, my parents had a difficult time getting me do anything different than reading a book.
When my two daughters were small, and didn't nap after a certain very young age, I used to read just before bed, but nothing too demanding. I also read when my first daughter was napping, before I had daughter number two!It's a challenge, that's for sure!
Both my daughters are parents and they love reading, and so does my granddaughter. My 13 year old grandson enjoyed reading until covid and on-line school was the reality. He's a good reader but he'd rather do something else. I'm just glad that he loves nature and walking outdoors.
Toronto is a big city with lots of green space, ravines and interesting neighbourhood.
It also has the busiest public library system in North America, with 100 branches!
Congratulations on being a dad, Sabri!
Reading with your kids is a lot of fun-enjoy!
Well I don't have any kids, but a dear friend told me when he was first handed his baby in the hospital, and his wife was elsewhere, he wasn't sure what to do with it. So he decided to read it the book he happened to be reading, which was Winston Churchill's A History of the English Speaking Peoples, 4 Vols. 😂😆
Bionic Jean wrote: "Well I don't have any kids, but a dear friend told me when he was first handed his baby in the hospital, and his wife was elsewhere, he wasn't sure what to do with it. So he decided to read it the ..."Love it!
Leo wrote: "when my kids were that little, spending days with them meant that I had to keep my attention at them. And sometimes could do something else next to it, but not reading a book - I need my concentrat..."Indeed, it's not really doable to read while taking care of the nipper. I can sometimes get away with it for 10 minutes but then don't feel like I've read it properly. I've read to the baby every evening since he was 2 months old in the hopes of building a love of books. He does love turning the pages and lifting the flaps which feels like a good start. But if he does start to reject books I don't want to push it too hard in case it forms a bad association.
Rosemarie wrote: "When my two daughters were small, and didn't nap after a certain very young age, I used to read just before bed, but nothing too demanding. I also read when my first daughter was napping, before I ..."
Thanks :) Before being a parent I never realised how ridiculously variable naps are. Ralph's currently doing two a day with anywhere between 0.5-1.5 hrs per nap, and *always* needs a resettle after 30-40 mins. Envious of other parents whose babies do solid naps of an hour or two hours - it must be so much easier to get stuff done if you can predict what's going to happen.
Bionic Jean wrote: "Well I don't have any kids, but a dear friend told me when he was first handed his baby in the hospital, and his wife was elsewhere, he wasn't sure what to do with it. So he decided to read it the ..."
Amazing story, and a very similar situation to mine although I don't remember having a book to hand and the baby was crying pretty much constantly at the time!
I guessing that when they are tiny you can read them pretty much anything! It's your presence and tone of voice they will enjoy. So maybe you will be able to read pretty well as much as ever right now, Sabri 😊
Certainly true when he was really tiny. Nowadays if the page doesn't have much stimulation - pictures, textures, flaps etc... - then he'll keep turning the pages himself and/or get distracted by the lamp, curtains or whatever else is in reach!
Sabri wrote: "I heard this week that there was a successful strike on some of Russia's missile launchers, which has hopefully caused a bit of a lull in the Kharkiv bombardment"Yes, there was a nice hit after the US allowed to use its missiles to strike russian territory (but only explicitly defending Kharkiv).
And congrats re your parenthood!
Mod
Like Leo, I read more newspapers and magazines when my children were little because an article took less time than an entire book. Once they were old enough for library Storytime we went weekly and came home with a stack of picture books to read together.
I think I enjoy reading long books even more now because I just didn't have the time when they were little!
(All my children are adults now).
Oleksandr wrote: "Sabri wrote: "I heard this week that there was a successful strike on some of Russia's missile launchers, which has hopefully caused a bit of a lull in the Kharkiv bombardment"Yes, there was a ni..."
Thanks, and I hope that the recent changes in military supply help to shift the momentum in Ukraine's favour.
Natalie wrote: "Congratulations Sabri on the new baby!
Like Leo, I read more newspapers and magazines when my children were little because an article took less time than an entire book. Once they were old enough f..."
Thanks. I suppose there's no dearth of long books in sci fi and fantasy :)
Sabri wrote: "...Would be keen to hear from any other readers that remember going through early parenthood, what it was like and how it impacted their reading."Congratulations on becoming a dad, Sabri! Brush up on your dad jokes, because they are going to come in very handy over the next few decades. :)
The day my daughter was born was the best day of my life. But that little rascal would not sleep! I was actually able to increase my reading time while I sat next to her in the swing and tried (in vain) to get her down to sleep. Eventually I gave up and just slept with her on the couch - well, I would (kind of) sleep and she would lie there inches away from my face, gently pulling off my eyelids.
Later when she was older I found that reading was a good way to initiate a nap. But instead of reading her one of her books, with moons and ponies or whatever, I would read one of my books and that did the trick. It also had the extra benefit of putting my wife to sleep at the same time, then I would have the house to myself for a while.
As my daughter got older, I had more time to read while I waited to pick her up from school or sitting around at her various practices. Despite prevailing wisdom, reading to my daughter as a child didn't make her much of a reader but she is a great athlete and a very good student as well so I count my blessings every day.
Now she's out of state at college and I miss her a ton, but we speak a couple times a week and we text a few times each day.
Enjoy every moment you have, especially while your son is little, because it all goes by so fast!
RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Sabri wrote: "...Would be keen to hear from any other readers that remember going through early parenthood, what it was like and how it impacted their reading."Congratulations on becoming a dad, ..."
Thanks and way ahead of you on the dad jokes. I've actually been compiling a list of musicians whose names can be said differently to sound like a corporate entity. For example:
Harry's Tiles - The last word in kitchen makeovers
Taylor's Whiffed - Perfumes to make you fall in love with a new person every year
Kate's Tables - It's not a home 'til there's one in every room
etc...
I see your point about the failures of prevailing wisdom. My attitude is to give them as much opportunity as I can in any direction and then to see where they want to go. But it'll be great if they love books.
The Evolution of Science Fiction
Books mentioned in this topic
A History of the English Speaking Peoples, 4 Vols (other topics)Charmian Kittredge London: Trailblazer, Author, Adventurer (other topics)
A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? (other topics)
Bleak House (other topics)
A Night in the Lonesome October (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Winston Churchill (other topics)Roger Zelazny (other topics)
Felix Salten (other topics)
Sam Kean (other topics)
Chuck Tingle (other topics)
More...
