Over the years perhaps you have noticed that I have a particular fondness for soaking in nonfiction books via audio recordings.
It has become a passion to hunt down the most cost effective format in which to locate an audio version of my current book of obsession.
So today I went to go see some computer nerds. I brought in my fave crisp new book,ready for them to magically transform into an audio format for me....only to be shocked by their retort. Perhaps the dude had just spent an all-nighter coding, because his reply was rather chalky.
He stated that it would cost thousands of dollars for him to manually feed my book into a scanner which would then be turned into a text file which would then be fed into a software that could transform text into a computerized voice file. He said the computerized voice would suck....why would anyone want to listen to that......and would most likely contain errors from either the paper to text file conversion, or from the text to computerized voice conversion process.
He seemed to be quite adamant that my request was not ideal....nor reasonable. What a waste of a treacherous drive up our slippery newly snow covered streets.
Sigh..... But alas, i am not one to give up too easily! I considered briefly the idea of contacting our local CNIB to see if perhaps they had more user friendly methods for their visually impaired clients when transforming some written works into audio formats.
Instead I called our local book store. The clerk did a search for me, to see if there was any kind of audio version for sale globally for my current book obsession. Woot woot! They found one. And guess what .....it was very easy to purchase on my phone via Kobo.
I had thought that Kobo was only an e-reader type of gadget.....like an ipad for e-books.
But lo and behold, because the clerk in the book store was willing to do a search that did not in any way benefit her employer, I have been able to listen to my fave new nonfiction book on my phone.
Perhaps some day computers will have advanced so far into artificial intelligence, that it will be a simple and cost effective feat simply to convert a paperback or hardcover into a seamless audio book.....but for now at least I have another method with which to chow down on my next new must-hear non-fiction book.
Be courageous friends in your lifelong learning. It leads somewhere good.....and is worth the effort.
Peace,
Carla
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It has become a passion to hunt down the most cost effective format in which to locate an audio version of my current book of obsession.
So today I went to go see some computer nerds. I brought in my fave crisp new book,ready for them to magically transform into an audio format for me....only to be shocked by their retort. Perhaps the dude had just spent an all-nighter coding, because his reply was rather chalky.
He stated that it would cost thousands of dollars for him to manually feed my book into a scanner which would then be turned into a text file which would then be fed into a software that could transform text into a computerized voice file. He said the computerized voice would suck....why would anyone want to listen to that......and would most likely contain errors from either the paper to text file conversion, or from the text to computerized voice conversion process.
He seemed to be quite adamant that my request was not ideal....nor reasonable. What a waste of a treacherous drive up our slippery newly snow covered streets.
Sigh..... But alas, i am not one to give up too easily! I considered briefly the idea of contacting our local CNIB to see if perhaps they had more user friendly methods for their visually impaired clients when transforming some written works into audio formats.
Instead I called our local book store. The clerk did a search for me, to see if there was any kind of audio version for sale globally for my current book obsession. Woot woot! They found one. And guess what .....it was very easy to purchase on my phone via Kobo.
I had thought that Kobo was only an e-reader type of gadget.....like an ipad for e-books.
But lo and behold, because the clerk in the book store was willing to do a search that did not in any way benefit her employer, I have been able to listen to my fave new nonfiction book on my phone.
Perhaps some day computers will have advanced so far into artificial intelligence, that it will be a simple and cost effective feat simply to convert a paperback or hardcover into a seamless audio book.....but for now at least I have another method with which to chow down on my next new must-hear non-fiction book.
Be courageous friends in your lifelong learning. It leads somewhere good.....and is worth the effort.
Peace,
Carla
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