kestrell | Entries tagged with audio

The 8 Best Websites to Download Audiobooks for Free
https://www.makeuseof.com/best-websites-download-free-audiobooks/

Learn Out Loud
https://www.learnoutloud.com/
Learn Out Loud's Directory of free audio books, courses, documentaries, talks, interviews, speeches, and many other great free audio and video resources.
https://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video

20 of the Best Free Audiobooks You Need to Listen To
https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/best-free-audiobooks-need-hear/

Kes: I recently bought a variety pack of different styles of hooks and skins to fit over my AirPods to make them more secure, but I'm still finding the fact that most of these varieties have to be removed in order to charge your AirPods kind of an annoyance, but mileage may vary.

https://www.howtogeek.com/751445/airpods-dont-fit-try-these-fixes/

Jeff Wayne releases new "War of the Worlds" musical
https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/jeff-wayne-releases-new-war-of-the-worlds-musical-drama-exclusive-clip#main-content
My favorite paratext on the subject is still the TV documentary
The Night that Panicked America (TV movie, 1975, screenplay by Nicholas Meyer)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073454/
screenplay by Nicholas Meyer, screenwriter of "The Seven Percent Solution" and many Star Trek movies
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0583292/?ref_=tt_ov_wr#writer

Current Mood: excited
Current Location: aerye

"Welcome, foolish mortals!"

You can hear the entire thing online --and also get some background info--by going to this link on my favorite blog
www.shadowmanor.com/blog/?p=16612

The Art of Darkness blog has a creepy-cool post
http://www.shadowmanor.com/blog/?p=12417
about The Conet Project
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conet_Project
which involves the archiving of recordings from
numbers stations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers_station

block quote start
Weird shortwave radio broadcasts that transmit groups of numbers, letters, or different types of (patterned) noises. Shortwave radio hobbyists have known about them for several decades, and the best guess is that they’re used by various secret agencies to transmit messages to spies in the field. Nobody knows for sure, because no government will admit to using them.
They’re strangely long-lived, often transmitting on a strict schedule for years and apparently unhindered by political changes; when the USSR collapsed, for instance, several numbers stations suspected to be associated with that government saw an increase in activity instead of going silent.
They’re also often oddly sinister: Most of the letter or number groups are spoken by adult voices, but there’s a station dubbed “The Swedish Rhapsody” which transmits in the voice of a little girl. There’s a station which employs the voice of a woman “intoning numbers as if she were engaging in intercourse.” And a station known as “The Buzzer” transmits high-precision buzzing on 4625khz, 24 hours a day, every day.
block quote end

Looking at the MIT IAP schedule for Comparative Media Studies, there is actually a game development course being offered on creating an audio game and hey, no programming experience required! Somehow I doubt that the engine for creating the games is accessible, however. But I'm all in favor of more people creating audio-only games, and I'm still a bit boggled that the folks at BoingBoing seemed to like the audio game Papa Sangre.

Friday evening LJ user alexx_kay surprised me with a new talking HD radio http://www.icanseemypc.com/hdradio.html?gclid=CNWtgtXLxqQCFYa8Kgodmy3KfQ

I am a radio addict who pretty much listens to the radio 24/7 but the reception in the aerye is really poor, possibly due to the non-Euclidean geometry and no doubt exacerbated by having two UPSs and two computers in a relatively small space. I had been talking about getting a HD radio for a couple of years but, as most HD radios use touchpads and visual displays, they have not been very accessible until this model from Dice Electronics came out in June.
( continued below cut )

Actually, some of these add-ons can also be installed on IE, so it's worth checking the URLs for more info even if you don't use Firefox.

1. Fluffbusting Purity for Facebook
This add-on wil get rid of various extraneous game and quiz messages sent to your Facebook page
go to
http://www.fbpurity.com/

2. ePub reader
I've written about this great epub reader previously
http://kestrell.livejournal.com/585130.html
and the recently updated version is even more accessible than before as the tool bar buttons have been labeled in a way which shows up as real names in screen readers, as opposed to the previous garbled graphic labels, although I find the choice of the phrases "next chapter" and "previous chapter" kind of confusing, as at times the next/previous sections can be something like title or acknowledgement pages.

3. FlashMute,
Gets rid of flash audio which loads automatically.
http://www.indev.no/?p=projects#flashmute
Note on how to use from installation page:
When executed, FlashMute will put a new icon in your systray (which normally can be found at the lower right of your screen). When single-clicking this icon, it will alternate between its normal (unmuted) "F"-state, and the (muted) "F" with a red X across it. When in the normal state, Flash movies will be allowed to use sound output, but when the red X is displayed, Flash will be denied access to your audio hardware.
Pressing CTRL + ALT + M will switch between muted and unmuted mode. This is a hotkey alternative to single-clicking the icon. It also serves as a panic-button if a loud Flash movie jumps up on you.

4. Visum, which can help solve those inaccessible captchas.
http://www.webvisum.com/
download page at
http://www.webvisum.com/en/main/download
Edited later: The site is now loading but you do have to go to register and request an invitation before you can download the add-on.

Current Location: aerye
Current Music: www.wwoz.com

1. Papa Sangre
http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/06/papa_sangre.php
a soon-to-be-released audio game for the iPhone which uses a sonic landscape. This is the kind of thing which I have been imagining for years whenever someone asks me about what I want from an audio game.

2. An article about a new book, _Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear_ by Neil Lerner

Horrors! Davidson Professor’s Book Explores Music in Scary Movies
by John Syme
http://www.collegenews.org/x10349.xml

3. Lastly, not specifically an audio event, but from Pretty/Scary
http://pretty-scary.net/
the Website that focuses on horror created by women, comes this announcement
Yfke Van Berckelaer's 'Zombie Love' and Maude Michaud's 'Reflection' double-feature for charity!
On Wednesday, July 7th, All Things Horror

http://www.allthingshorroronline.com/
hosts a charity screening of Yfke Van Berckelaer’s short zombie musical Zombie Love and Maude Michaud's Frankenstein-inspired Reflection in Somerville, Massachuessetts, USA on July 7th, 2010. This double feature will showcase the American premiere of Frankenstein, Unlimited, a collection of six shorts each with their own take on Frankenstein mythology, and benefit the Boston Girls Rock Camp.
Frankenstein Unlimited consists of six short films from up-and-coming filmmakers in Montréal. Each film maker uses themes contained within Mary Shelley's original novel as a template for their movies...
The program is a fundraiser for the Boston Girls Rock Camp which runs August 2nd through the 7th. The camp teaches girls ages eight through 16 how to play instruments, write their own music and perform for a club audience within a week. They offer workshops provide leadership and life skills carry them through the years that follow. A representative from the camp will be on hand to discuss how anyone can donate not only money but they are timer services to make this camp continued success.
Somerville Theatre
55 Davis Square
Somerville, MA 02144
United States
617.625.5700
The night starts at 8pm and tickets are available at the door for $5.

Kes: And speaking of games with amazing audio design, when do I get to try Papa Sangre? Yes, I know, game design is hard, so while I'm waiting around here are some links that are kind of keeping me amused. As with the previous post, this was sent to the IGDA list, and I've reordered them according to my interest, because I think men who talk about audio design are hot. I know Foley artists used to call it "sweetening" the sound, but using the adjective "deeper" sounds so much more ...immersive.

1. Electronic Soup Podcast on deeper Audio games: http://switchgaming.blogspot.com/2010/06/electronic-soup-podcast-with-added-dark.html

2. Eye-controlled Guitar Hero clone at Accessible GameBase: http://www.gamebase.info/videos/view/eyeguitar_453.html

3. Reid Kimball's mock up of PS3 game Heavy Rain with full subtitles/closed-captions - http://blog.rbkdesign.com/2010/06/mockup-of-heavy-rain-with-full-closed-captioning/

4. Steve Spohn's take on the to-be-released Kinect: http://www.ablegamers.com/xbox-360-news/ablegamers-kinects-with-microsoft.html and his tie-up with Evil Controllers modified Xbox 360 controller: http://kotaku.com/5557885/duct-tape-and-a-bag-of-rice-helps-disabled-man-get-in-the-game

5. Tilt Sensor for PS3 (via LEPMIS PS3-SAP interface): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7-cub7gCtw&feature=digest

6. Fishie Fishie Fifty for Xbox 360: A one-switch game for one to fifty(!!) players: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-GB/games/offers/00000001-0000-4000-8000-000058550557 and http://www.farbs.org/games.html (PC 1 player version)