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did some quick googling (but haven't really investigated the links in depth yet)

amazon official press release (non-multimedia version): Introducing the Newest Prime Benefit – Audible Channels for Prime

amazon official press release: multimedia version

https://www.amazon.com/audiblechannels

http://www.audible.com/channels/

I'm trying to sort out books that cover all the material in fewer pages, lower book cost, and appreciable organization. I'm finding that some books for things like programming language design or computer science cost $20 or $50 and have clearer, more concise explanations than 1,000-page McGraw Hill tomes that cost $348.

...I don't care to study compsci in college; I dropped out. I'm looking at my local college's curriculum and syllabus for each class, snagging my own books, and self-studying. This may be more or less efficient (I can *certainly* learn 4 years of material in 6 months's time; however some of these courses have a discussion format, which I can only approximate by myself, and so some insights will grind in a lot less smoothly). Mathematics is also a lot harder to self-teach in a high-quality manner; most material is college text and, as mentioned above, most college textbooks are hunks of shit.

Education incurs cognitive load. Bad education curriculum and bad materials increase cognitive load. Good study strategies decrease cognitive load. Approaching material using strong study methods--Cornell notes, SQW4R/OK4R study methods, self-testing, group discussion--increases the rate of learning and memorization while reducing cognitive load. Using better material decreases the cognitive load incurred by using those study methods (or not using any study methods). With better study strategies, better material, or both, education is faster and more successful.

Most of what I've learned came from exploration not unlike something completely different from whatever John C. Lily did. Seriously, ketamine is not the way.

The sad fact is my brain is filled with a wide stretch of domain knowledge. Moonwalking with Einstein made a good inspirational piece for all the mnemonics stuff; and I've since learned things like Kepner-Tregoe problem solving and decision analysis, hierarchical decomposition from project management, SQ3R and derived study methods, Cornell and other note-taking systems, and so forth. Some of what Kenneth Higbee wrote about memory--that it's associative, that it works by association, that organization sharply improves it, and so forth--has allowed me to recognize how and why some of these systems help with memory, with studying, and with analysis.

For the most part, I have a pile of unsorted information my brain can command. Learning and teaching are different things, and I do not have a prepared presentation of any use to anyone. Some things I can't even explain properly, such as my model of thinking by which I break things down into abstract models and then associate them with anything else having a similar abstract model--I'll treat any mechanism as a set of subsets of other mechanisms, all cobbled together into one big machine. If I had a well-organized presentation, I'd have an educational plan instead of a vague ideal and a pile of tools I've already described.

I can say this, however: people don't do enough reflection. Modern study methods include a step in which you think about what you just learned and how it relates to everything else--I do this in the extreme--and so come to more firmly understand the topic and those related topics, while also solidifying the new knowledge within the framework of your memory. People like to throw around words like "critical thinking" the same way teachers throw around words like "study" and "take notes": they don't have any meaning in mind, and are only voicing a complaint that you're not taking an abstract and ill-defined action. Reflection is the basis of critical thinking: you will frequently find disturbing mismatches, which only proves either your knowledge is incomplete or something you've learned is incorrect.

What's scary is banning child pornography somehow has become a slippery slope to Librarian control of the United States.

There's no hope for the world.

So is a Master of Philosophy now only available to the wealthy?

Historically that is exactly what a master's degree in philosophy was for - rich scions whose parents wanted to park them someplace for 5-10 years until they got out of their embarrassing late teens and early twenties and could take part in the family dynasty. The idea that the middle class should go to degree-granting institution is a very recent phenomenon.

I have nothing against getting a good liberal arts education - but I think you should do it the way I do - for $15/month. If somebody wants an education it doesn't cost hardly anything. If you want a *diploma* it will cost you.

Radio Drama isn't dead, it just changed with the times Besides, while radio dramas may may be dead in the US, they are still relatively popular outside the bubble, including Satellite radio and BBC Radio.

I just listened to this short (45 minute), free audio book this morning on the way to work... and then this article popped up on Slashdot. I swear I heard the Twilight Zone theme song start playing and got a shiver. "We Like You So Much and Want to Know You Better"

Hey, semi-related.. If you type Jacquard loom into the search bar on audible.com (through 6/12) you can get a free copy of Jullian Assange Cypherpunks book.

Also the version on Audible is very good too, each book has a forward recorded by the author himself. Audible has the entire "Lost Fleet" series and it's sequel series "Beyond The Frontier". The book released this year, a new sequel series, is not out on audiobook yet.

Here. an entire book's worth of citations where Companies or Individuals give stuff away for free, and then end-up making MORE money they they did previously (when they kept things locked up):

http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B002V5CUHI - Listen to it while at work - it's very enlightening.

Sony needs to read this book:
  - FREE - The Radical Price is the Future http://www.audible.com/pd?productID=BK_AVEN_000001

The internet allows infinite duplication at almost no cost. People know this and are demanding that they can get their goods for free, or almost-free. Sony/Capcom will have to learn to fund themselves via other methods (Chapter 6 - Why Gaming is Free in China) or become irrelevant.

>>>the 'shininess' wins with today's kids and they do NOT ever vote with their wallets. they buy sony blue ray, they encourage the DRM with their purchases

Pay?
Purchase?
Not familiar with those concepts, but I know this one: "FREE: The Future of a Radical Price" http://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B002V5CUHI

>>>you can find alternatives.

Yep. Emulators.

I understand this was originally causing quite a stir with Audible.com. Audible stats that it will not allow any non DRM books to be placed on there site. Even if the author requests that they do so. I know of one author mentioned on TWIT - This Week In Tech. (I believe was John C Dvorak, but can't remember) that we was not going to put his book up on Audible.com just for the reason he wanted it not DRM'd. With all the major book companies shifting to a none DRM format, I wonder if sites like this that are smaller will change there attitude.

Sadly, there aren't that many good sites with more than, say, 10 free audio books on them. However, that's better than a couple years ago. I don't have my list with me atm, but off the top of my head:

Librivox
Audio Books For Free (which has both free and pay options)
Free Classic Audio Books
And this great post Audiobook Podcast Collection at Open Culture, which lists some sites at the bottom.

If you go through through the list, you'll note that the vast majority are classics in the public domain rather than anything new. I can't say they've been a big hit with patrons.

There's also Audible.com,which is a pay site with DRMed files for both Mac and Windows.

For us, people often find the eAudiobooks in our catalog when they search and simply click on a link to it, so if they're looking for a specific book, that's often how they get to the OverDrive or NetLibrary version. I do agree that libraries should list the DRM-free audiobook sites on their Web pages, and you could always send them a polite e-mail suggesting that they do that as a service for patrons with incompatible systems, iPods, etc. After all, it will certainly make the library look much better too. :) (Sort of "We can't do anything about this right now, but we're out there looking for you guys too!")

I'm not sure what different libraries' policies would be about putting up links to commercial sites like Audible.com or Audio Books for Free that the library hasn't contracted with.

Yes, replying to my own post. *sigh*

I forgot to mention that Audible.com offers audiobooks for download, and I'm under the impression that they're DRM-free and work with Macs. I haven't tried it, though, so I could be wrong. So a third option would be to somehow convince them (and have them convince their publishers) to enter the library market without adding DRM.

And yes, I _DO_ sit around all day and think about things like this and make up lists of where people can get free audiobook downloads. It's not like we don't care. :P

iPods and Audible audiobooks make a great combination in that regard.

What's missing is the Audible store for ebooks.

For $22.95 a month I get two books of my choice, which are usually current best-sellers in fiction / non-fiction. Work it out, and that's about $11.50 for the current hardback which sells at $27.95, or the iTMS version selling for $25.95, and definitely beats the $30-50 needed to get the complete audio version on CD.

I travel quite a bit, and currently have about a hundred audiobooks on my iPod that I can listen to in a line, on a plane, or where-ever. The selection means I have quite a bit of flexibility in terms of what I can listen to to fit my mood, as opposed to lugging a single hardback or a couple of paperbacks. And let's me watch recorded TV shows and listen to music to boot.

So "players" can afford that kind of flexiblity. But...

The point is also that if they want to speed up the adoption of ebooks then they need to provide incentives for consumers to adopt them... and paying for a dedicated reader so I can buy the same book at the same price as a hardback is NOT an incentive.

I'm one of those odd folks who uses a portable audio device almost solely for listening to podcasts and audiobooks. And it's clear that SanDisk has basically written us off.

I've owned two versions of SanDisk's Digital Audio Player, the original 256MB version and the version 2 1GB model. Ironically, audiobook support decreased between the two versions. Version 1 supported Audible formats 2 through 4 (4 being the highest quality), Version 2 supports only 2 and 3. Version 1 would save your place in a file when you switched to the radio and back, Version 2 doesn't. Version 1 let you increase playback speed up to 130%, version 2 has no speed options. In other words, all of the spoken-word-friendly features were dropped.

Now the e280 appears to have no support for Audible format (though it may be undocumented; I did check the full PDF User's Manual), no bookmarking or other features designed for long spoken-word files.

My next MP3 device purchase is going to be an iPod Nano. Sorry, SanDisk, you've lost me.

I'd say it IS the cost - Audible is expensive. It's hard to justify paying so much in advance for a show that you could hear for free. At least Car Talk is available for free for the first week via their website, then by Audible from there.

Which brings up an interesting point - there is no standard model for NPR shows. Some of the local stations just publish directly in mp3 (kuow.org), other NPR shows are just on their website, and others (like previously mentioned) show up on Audible.

I would like to see them offer all shows for free in mp3 off their website for a limited time period, then as a paid download after a week or two. And go a head and throw in a small "this podcast is supported by X company and from donations from people like you..." in the beginning of each downloadable show.

I got a subscription to Audible where I get two audio books a month for about $11 each. Those are first run mainstream books, at prices less than half that of the hardback, and typically a quarter that of the CD audio discs.

And I can "read" books in the car, at the gym, and in other places where reading on the iPaq or a real book would be impossible. Plug the pod into a set of speakers, and I can read while doing moving around, working, cleaning, or yes, in the bathtub.

The generic e-book cost the same as a general paper back, I can't say to a friend here go read this kool book with out also lending them my $XXX device as well... That for stories.

But I know a lot of professional who would love these for references if they came in a 8x10 2 page format for a reasonable price i.e. $1000-$1500, nothing to fancy they just need long battery life (12-24h) maybe 1 inch thick, (this is not unrealistic with the technology that is out there I have looked it is just the e-paper will cost you something like $10,000usd and well I think that is a bit much)... but you are looking at $3000 for a 4x6 development kit and I a guessing that translates to well we will go conservative $500 for a final device.

As for me though I prefer audio books http://www.audible.com/, often these are less then the paper back versions and for my reference book, well when the computer is not working or I need something quick nothing bets the reliability of a dead tree with printing on it. (I might change my mind if the above device was available)

How about productions by ... NPR?"

Well their website has a lot of stuff archived. The link on the main page to "Archives" would be a good place to start. Some of the other shows that NPR stations play are available through Audible for a fee.

There was no mention of compatibility with iPod, or any other player, that I read. This sounds more like an Audible-like service, but for music.

Second the audiobook recomendation. Spacewise, I have more audiobooks on my pod than music. I'm also an Audible member, so I can get most of the latest bestsellers for about $11 a book. Much better than paying $30-$50 for the cd versions.

What pisses me off is you CANNOT get an xbox now that doesn't include the Forza racing game. I just want to softmod it and use it as an entertainment center. XBMC is awesome. I have little to no desire to play games on it.

I have about 6GB of music that I bought (I'm very picky about my encoding.) And about 1-2GB of audiobooks from http://www.audible.com/, not to mention movies *coughporncough*.

But think about it - not that much thought is required - A $29.99 game "included" with the xbox for $30 MORE than an xbox with no game.

That's right!

A $149.99 game system + $29.99 game being sold for $179.99.

You're just FORCED to buy a game at full price with the system whether you want it or not.

I asked the local Game Rush/Blockbuster how much they'd give in trade for the game, because I was planning on trading it in before I left the store with my new xbox.

Try looking for Forza on ebay. There are like 100 copies. Nobody wants the fucking thing, but we're forced to buy it at full price if we want a new xbox.

What the fuck?

Retail Price: $25.95
Audible Price: $18.17
Promotional Price: $9.95
(available to first-time Audible buyers only.)

Retail Price: $25.95
Audible Price: $18.17
Promotional Price: $9.95
(available to first-time Audible buyers only.)

If you can spring for an Audible subscription ($49 a year I think), I'd *highly* recommend the weekly Science News . It is concisely written for an intelligent lay audience, covering all the fields, with strength in physics, astronomy and the biological sciences (They are pretty weak in compsci though).

SciNews is run by some non-profit organization, so its not the watery, awkwardly-written PopSci articles you get with most commercial publications, i.e. the "Discovery X Can Cure Cancer" or "New 2006 Automobiles Filled with Science!"

New Scientist ain't bad either, though can be a bit flakey. I'd avoid the audio broadcasts of Scientific American, which has articles that tend to be longer and murkier. That pub's seen better days.

You've been able to get most any audio book in compressed electronic form for some time now. It's actually pretty cheap.

Audible

You can get a subscription for cheap, which allows you to download a couple books a month for a price far below the traditional cost of audio books.

Audible.com

Dune is available on CD from Borders.

I'm still pissed that NPR abandonded Audible.com with no backup plan. I mean, what the hell? Who had the brilliant idea?

"I know, let's turn of this service that is generating a revenue stream and replace it with ... ground seashells and sand! I wonder if anyone will notice."

Feh.

Don't know about the rest of you, but I have a lot of dead time in my life -- waiting on my wife, waiting in traffic, waiting at airports and of course flying itself. I used to spend a lot of time assembling CD's and later mp3's to listen to. Lately, however, I listen to podcasts and audiobooks. For audiobooks there's nobody like Audible.Com as their subscriptions are very good value for money. For podcasts, I listen to Keith and the Girl if I'm in a belligerant mood, or the Screenwriters Podcast if I want to lean more about my hobby of screenwriting. The CNN podcast is pretty good, as are several ones put out by PBS and their affiliate stations. Podcasts are particularly good if you have a passionate interest in something narrow like fine wines, a particular religion, etc which the Clear Channel motherfuckers are unlikely to spend much time on. Oh, and i don't give a fuck if it's called podcasting or not, sorry to you moronic trolls who fret about such things.

Not a chance.

Read, Dogfight on 101

Then compare Shatner with Ellison, if you can.

A simple, solid short story of a family man and his "souped-up" car. Ellison is a craftsman who mastered the short story - Shatner came late to the party and only because Roddenberry cast him in a SF role.

Ellison is a writer, first, last and always. His muse may wain, but the body of work is solid.

Finally, Ellison has done dramatic readings for years. It is another outlet for the artist and many of those are classics.

See, http://www.audible.com/ and search for Ellison as narrator.

I would love for NPR to start selling/distributing podcasts.

You mean like this and this?

Audible already works very well with the iPod. I'm sure iTMS will be integrating already-well-established feeds like this at some point, simply because there is an existing market of people who are willing to pay for them.

I would love for NPR to start selling/distributing podcasts.

You mean like this and this?

Audible already works very well with the iPod. I'm sure iTMS will be integrating already-well-established feeds like this at some point, simply because there is an existing market of people who are willing to pay for them.

A better question is, "why should I care?"

I'll tell you why I care: after having a tivo for years now, I like my entertainment time shifted. The few things I listen to on the radio are mostly NPR broadcasts, and mostly on an inconvenient times for me. So I get the podcast versions of those. Done.

I don't listen to lame ass rants made by some kid in his mom's basement, and I'm guessing that few adults do. Podcasting has been going on a lot longer than you think. Take for example Audible. They've been doing it since way before it was trendy, and I've been downloading (and in the earlier days paying for) NPR content from them. Simply because it's convenient for me.

I use Audible myself, and play my audio books on my iPod mini. Syncs right up with the rest of my iTunes music.

Right now I've got about 3 days worth of audio books on my iPod.

I perfer it to CDs/Tapes, etc. The audio books take up so much less physical space. :)

What are you talking about? The iPod plays freaking mp3s not "iTunes music".

It can play MP4, AAC, and AA (Audible audio book file format) as well.

You don't even have to use iTunes, you can use EphPod (missing some features, like doesn't set the damn clock on the ipod, doesn't preserve Audiobook bookmarks (fucking required)), or that new winamp plugin.

Wow, that's news to me. Who knew?

Local Los Angeles radio station KCRW does podcasting now, and they've got some great in-house shows, like "Left, Right, and Center," and "To the Point with Warren Olney."

One expensive route is going to the local book store and just getting your items on tape. you've probably gone you yor local books store and have been frustrated by either the selection or price.

I've found that my local public library has a great selection of fiction, and it's virtually free. Recently I listened to a Clive Cussler book. It's just a little geeky with some action, adventure and women thrown in. Dune audio books will get you all the way across the country. I just enjoyed Dune House Atreides (which was 6 tapes)! I had much fun with the very large selection of Star Wars audio books (not the real episodes, but all of the in-between stories). If you ever fdo buy an audio book, don't let it sit in a box somewhere. Donate it to your local library so that others can enjoy it!

A good source for digital content may be Audible.com. For example, I just noticed they have all of the books from my favorite Ender Wiggins series by Orson Scott Card. If they have all of those books on MP3, I can imagine what else they'd have. For a tech geek, try a one-year subscription to "Technology Review"! You'd download them to your PC and then transfer them to your MP3 player or iPod or whatever and broadcast to your stereo as long as the batteries last (buy rechargable batteries!).

Some (like me) haven't made the bold leap into the 21st century and still have a stereo/tape player as their primary audio device in their car. I recently found a PC-to-tape device being advertised and reviewed. It looks great, but I don't have such a disposable income that'd warrant such luxury. I'll probably jury-rig some software to connect a cheap wireless Linux PC around my house to my stereo and record that way.

-ez

One expensive route is going to the local book store and just getting your items on tape. you've probably gone you yor local books store and have been frustrated by either the selection or price.

I've found that my local public library has a great selection of fiction, and it's virtually free. Recently I listened to a Clive Cussler book. It's just a little geeky with some action, adventure and women thrown in. Dune audio books will get you all the way across the country. I just enjoyed Dune House Atreides (which was 6 tapes)! I had much fun with the very large selection of Star Wars audio books (not the real episodes, but all of the in-between stories). If you ever fdo buy an audio book, don't let it sit in a box somewhere. Donate it to your local library so that others can enjoy it!

A good source for digital content may be Audible.com. For example, I just noticed they have all of the books from my favorite Ender Wiggins series by Orson Scott Card. If they have all of those books on MP3, I can imagine what else they'd have. For a tech geek, try a one-year subscription to "Technology Review"! You'd download them to your PC and then transfer them to your MP3 player or iPod or whatever and broadcast to your stereo as long as the batteries last (buy rechargable batteries!).

Some (like me) haven't made the bold leap into the 21st century and still have a stereo/tape player as their primary audio device in their car. I recently found a PC-to-tape device being advertised and reviewed. It looks great, but I don't have such a disposable income that'd warrant such luxury. I'll probably jury-rig some software to connect a cheap wireless Linux PC around my house to my stereo and record that way.

-ez

These are the two places I get most of my audio content. ITConversations provides good free talks on tech subjects, while Audible provides all the premium content I need.

Walking tours? Audible has them, including material from Soundwalk which provides walking tours of NYC.

Audible also has the Feynmann lectures, audiobook versions of the Feynmann books, general science material like "Fabric of the Cosmos," Scientific American subscriptions, etc, etc. There's also a reasonable selection of SF&F and they are growing their content quicker now that they've reached a critical mass of subscribers.

Audible will cost you about $10 per book if you subscribe. If you do subscribe, make sure you get one of their deals (free MP3 player or rebate on an iPod or other AudibleReady device). It's definitely the best way to read while commuting, working out at gym, cleaning the dishes, and other brain-free tasks.

Yup - Reading eBooks and listening to http://www.audible.com/ books is my iPAQ's main duty although I also have http://www.mobipocket.com/ on my SmartPhone.

Audio books from Audible.com

Seriously: What is "Audible"? Never heard of that file format.

Audible.com is the #1 online source for downloadable audiobooks. As far as I know, it doesn't use its own format; that's just a journalistic gaffe.

Of course that brings up a nasty issue. NPR presumably makes a lot of money from the downloadable material on audible.com. If a lot of people started downloading that same material for free from the NPR web site, I suspect a lot of that material would cease to be available.

OK, as a blind person myself, let me try and address these questions.

1. games for the blind
2. 
   

   There are actually quite a few games out there that the blind can play. Most of them are specially designed for us. For more information, I'd dirrect you to some of the manufacturers. For something that's a little closer to what the original poster was looking for, check out this, this is the closest to a virtual world we have. The majority of these games are actually pretty good considering the size of the development staff for them.

   
   
3. open source software
4. 
   

   Unfortunately, accessibility is not high on the priority lists of many of the open source projects out there. Even if it were, I am not sure a huge number of blind people would switch. I'm sure us blind techies would look at the software just like anyone else, but you'd have a much bigger problem getting your blind grandmother to switch than your sighted grandmother. The reasons for this are extreemly complicated, and get into basic issues of how blind people look at technology in general. Most, however, beleive that Microsoft solutions work for them, and unless an open source solution can offer them something really compelling, and I mean to them specifically, they won't see a need to switch. As a result, most of the adaptive technology vendors do not see it worth their time to provide support for open source software at this point. Adaptive software vendors are concentrating on software a blind person would use in an employment situation, and for most work environments, Microsoft is it. Remember most blind people are not in IT related jobs, and those that are many times role their own solution. Also from my experience, your average IT person is really scared of putting adaptive software on their network. All of that said, there are some small efforts. The biggest example is the Window-Eyes screen reader, which as of 5.0 will offer support for the Mozilla Suite (NOT FIRE FOX)

   
   
5. MP3 players
6. 
   

   For all the wonderful things I've heard about the IPOD, unfortunately its useless for the blind. There are some MP3 players out there that would work, however. One interesting product is a device called the Book Courier, which not only plays MP3 files, but also reads text and Microsoft Word files. The Book Courier will also play content from Audible, a service which sells audio books online, much like the many music download services. Unfortunately, only a limited number of MP3 players support this service. I do not know if the IPOD is one of them.

   
   

Honestly, from my perspective, the adaptive technology world is several years behind the mainstream world. The reasons are rather obvious, but still I consider the situation pretty sad. Adaptive Technology is a pretty small, but in my view largely untapped, nitch that has a lot of room for improvement.

Creative recently released a patch for their Zen series of HD MP3 players that will allow playback of the audible format for audio books.

There is also a hack out there to make the iPod treat any AAC file like an audiobook file. I think it involves renaming the extension or something. This makes the iPod use persistent bookmarks on a file, and enables the speed up / slow down options for playback. I forget where I saw it though. Use Google to find it; I'm lazy.