The Scriptures in Audiobook Form, and How to Do It Yourself

also called "How Shell Scripts Saved the Day".

As I'm sure many of you know, I'm a Mormon, and as a Mormon, we are taught to read and study the scriptures. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has provided many ways to bring the scriptures to the people. In addition to the print edition of the scriptures, the Church provides them online, in mobile applications, and in audio form as a set of compact discs or a set of MP3 files which can be downloaded gratis and played on an audio player (e.g. an iPod).

The thing is, that they're provided as a set of MP3 files, with one MP3 file for each chapter of all the scriptures. This is fine if your MP3 player can only handle MP3 files, but if you have an iPod, iPhone, or iPad, your device supports audiobooks with the M4B extension, which are much nicer to manage, and they can remember your position as you listen to them. They can also be divided into chapters, but these chapters are in a single file, which is nice if you're listening through a book, so that the chapters play together in order as opposed to them playing in a random order. They also appear as audiobooks in iTunes, as opposed to music.

This is how I have it with my copy of the scriptures in audio form. I did this a few years ago, using a shareware app whose name I don't remember, on Macs in Queens College's computer labs (as I didn't have my own Mac at the time, and you could only make these audiobooks with chapters on a Mac). I was on these computers a few hours at a time, entering information by hand and the rather slow book-by-book process (and by "book" I mean the subdivisions found in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Pearl of Great Price). After a couple of weeks of this, I had a complete set of the Standard Works in audiobook form, for my enjoyment.

Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. My mom asks me if I can put a set of audio scriptures – in Spanish – on an iPod for someone. I figure, "Well, I might as well give it the same treatment."

Ten Years Ago...

With all this talk about "Ten years ago," ramping up to the tenth anniversary of this, I figure I'd share with you some pictures of what I did ten years ago today, September 8th.

The A Train? I've Got It Covered!

Over my summer blog hiatus, I did manage to make a couple of time lapse videos featuring the A line.

For those of you who don't know, the A line is one of the longest lines in the New York City subway, and includes the longest one-seat ride in the system.

These two videos cover the whole thing, all three branches, and it will take just a few minutes to watch them. Enjoy!