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!

My Favorite Quotes from Portal 2

Two weeks ago, Valve released Portal 2, the sequel to their popular game Portal. I gotta hand it to the writers at Valve. They've come up with some great gameplay, and some awesome quotes. In this post, I will list some of my favorite quotes from the game. Before we start however, keep in mind that not everyone has completed the game, as I have. Therefore, I am throwing up a huge SPOILER ALERT warning. If you are interested in playing this game, and have not yet done so, or if you couldn't care less about Portal or Portal 2, or video games in general, stop reading this post, and go to some of my others and read those, as they're relatively spoiler-free. If you have completed the single-player Portal 2 campaign, feel free to read on, by clicking on the title of this post.

The B24 VLOG – Post #1

Here's my first vlog post.

Messiah Sing-along: A Chaotic Experience

On December 12, 2010, I had the pleasure of attending what is called a "Messiah Sing-along." Also known as a "Scratch Messiah," this annual tradition, due to the fact that most of the chorus members are relatively unrehearsed, tends to be a bit disorganized. However, this year's performance was a bit more disorganized than usual.

26.2: Running the Marathon Route… on Public Transit!

Today, I embarked on a journey tens of thousands of people make every year, all on the same day… and I live-tweeted it. Apparently, my attempt at making my tweets public didn't take, so I tweeted anyway. I started on the route at 14:34:24 when the S53 bus left Lily Pond & McClean Avenues on Staten Island.

An iRant

With the popularity of iOS devices (iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad), why are there so many people out there misspelling or incorrectly formatting the names of these devices? For instance, I noticed on a message forum a thread about a new app for iOS devices. The title of this thread not only had a hyphen jammed in the name of an iOS device, but the wrong letter was capitalized!

Let me break it down for you. The name "iPhone" is spelled LOWER-CASE i, CAPITAL P, H-O-N-E! Keep in mind that the i is ALWAYS lower-case, the P is ALWAYS capital, and there is NEVER a hyphen! Never! Looking at the back of my iPhone, I do not see "i-hyphen-Phone" printed on the back, but I see "iPhone" – lower case i, capital P, no hyphen.

Oh, and one more thing. What the heck is an "iTouch"? If you answer that it's a product designed and sold by Apple, and could be described as an "iPhone without the phone," you fail.

VIDEO: 1 of a Kind

My fifth iTimeLapse video, this time on the #1 line, which was running a train of cars from Corona Yard.

“Take the Train to the Game” they say, Many listen, Übercrowding

So as transit agencies have declared for a while, “Take the Train to the Game,” so I did. Having received tickets to the USA vs. Brazil soccer game at New Meadowlands Stadium, I arranged to meet a friend (who was driving) at the stadium and I would take the train in. Coming in from the 7th Avenue subway and LIRR concourse, the first thing I noticed as I reached the top of the escalator was a REALLY long queue. I followed it to see where it leads, and as you may expect, it leads around a corner and to a bank of four New Jersey Transit ticket vending machines. Near those vending machines was another queue for a more distant bank of vending machines, and near those was another queue for a third bank of vending machines.

Twilight: Why I Couldn't Care Less

I was in a Burger King this evening when I saw promo posters for a scratch-off game based on the upcoming film Eclipse, part of the Twilight saga. The Twilight "saga" as it's called is a multimillion dollar phenomenon, drawing in women of ages 8 to 80. I have often expressed my disinterest in the series of films and books with actions such as muting televisions playing commercials for upcoming films, and denying invitations from others to watch with them. In short, I couldn't care less about it. That's about as far as I have taken many conversations about the film series. Here, I make my case further. Here's why I don't care for the Twilight "saga."

(B) Movie #2: The Time Lapse

Here's my latest video.

Announcing "Announcement Video #2"!

My latest video.

Catch Phrase Montage

If anyone remembers the short-lived ABC series "Pushing Daisies" (I know I do), you'll remember that the character Emerson Cod (played by Chi McBride) had a simple 3-word catch phrase.

Here's a brief montage of Emerson's catch phrase being said in a variety of situations.

That Zany Z Train

The third in a series of time lapse videos. Enjoy.

Time Lapse Videos

I recently purchased a copy of iTimeLapse for for my iPhone.

Here are two videos I made so far using this app.

First one is called “Times Square to Flushing in 400 Frames.”


Next one is called “A Very Vivacious V Train.”


Look out for more in the future.

Random thought #77503

Doesn't "Wheels" by the Foo Fighters sound a bit like "Unwell" by Matchbox 20?

Location:Queensboro Plaza, Long Island City, NY, United States

What's So Happy About Valentine's Day?

It's Valentine's Day. A day that celebrates love (eros in Greek) between man and woman. Everywhere I go, people seem to greet me with a "Happy Valentine's Day." What's there for the lonely to be happy about? Seriously. He has nobody to love (at least not in the way that Valentine's Day celebrates). What's just as bad is when someone he likes already has a boyfriend, who obviously is not him.

I've been stating this for a while now:
∀(G∈I)∄(G∈Tʹ)
Or, to put it in a different way:
∀(G), (I∩Tʹ)={ }

An explanation follows:
G is what is known in statistics as a "sample space." This sample space consists of all the single ladies of the church in New York.
I is a subset of G, indicative of all the ladies I am interested in.
T stands for "taken." The opposite of T, T-prime or Tʹ, another subset of G. T includes those who have boyfriends, those who want to be "just friends" with me, and those who are otherwise not interested in me. All those in T are currently unavailable, so the only ones left are those in Tʹ.

The first statement basically says that for all G that are in I (∀(G∈I)), there does not exist any G which is also in Tʹ (∄(G∈Tʹ))

The second statement reiterates the first, basically saying that the intersection of subsets I and T is null. This illustration shows what I mean.



As you can see, there’s no overlap between I and Tʹ.

With all the pressure placed upon me by family, friends, and the Church, looking at this is depressing. They encourage dating, but how can I when those in I are not in Tʹ, and those in Tʹ (assuming there are any in Tʹ) are not in I?

They say that there are “plenty of fish in the sea,” but how can that be when it seems like I’m fishing in the Dead Sea?

I have one person that I know (I don’t want to use the word “friend” because of the hope that it might progress beyond that, though we’ve known each other long enough that even that hopefulness is beginning to fade) who always seems to put a positive spin on something negative I might say (something I like about this person). But sometimes, I feel like I’m in some kind of black hole of negativity, such that not even the most positive thing could help make me feel better.

I invite you, the reader to try and prove me wrong.

To all the girls who have said they want to be “just friends” with me…

Congratulations¡ You've succeeded in altering the course of reality, sending it askew of what I was anticipating. This misalignment is not pleasing to me, and will result in me being in a depressed state for a period of a few days (or months).

If the reason you give is that you just don’t feel ready for a relationship at the moment. Don’t worry, that feeling will pass soon, when some other guy proposes to you and you say yes without hesitation. Or when another guy you say you have no interest in asks you out, and suddenly the two of you are boyfriend and girlfriend.

So you’ve shunted me off into that “friend zone” of yours. Great¡ Is that what you do to all the guys who treat you like a human being? Seriously. Women say they want to be with a “nice guy,” but when such a guy (like myself) comes along, you say that you don’t see him as boyfriend material? How messed up is that? And when you come up to me, complaining about how you can’t seem to find that “Prince Charming” type who whisks you off to distant lands, where he confesses of his love to you and asks to be his fairy tale princess, do you know what I’m going to say? It’ll be something like this: “Snap out of it! Such a man does not exist, and in the off chance he actually does exist, I’m sure that there’s already a long line of women who would do anything to be his bride.” Then I’d point them to this article and let them know that the guy you're looking for has been here the whole time.

The future status of our relationship will depend on how long it has been since we first met, and how much emotionial investment I put into the relationship. If we’ve known each other for a long time, then it’s likely you’ve been leading me on. Bad. If I get the feeling the relationship may go somewhere (even if it doesn’t), I might invest a bit more emotional energy into the relationship than I would if I intended to be “just friends” with you, especially if you send me non-verbal signals indicating that you want to be more than “just friends” with me. If done the right way, at the right time, I might want to be friends with you. If done the wrong way, at the wrong time, the results are disastrous. If you send me signals of interest whenever we’re close by, and do so for an extended period of time, causing me to make a huge emotional investment, then drop the “let’s just be friends” bomb, you might as well rip my heart out of my chest, saying, “You won’t be needing this anymore,” because that’s how it will feel to me. That will take months, even years to heal. Once it does, why would I want to be friends with you?

Just be aware, if you place me in that so-called “friend zone,” in a way that is not as disastrous as I just described, I may just lay dormant — hopeful that some day, you just might change your mind. There have been many fruitful relationships that have sprouted in this manner.

Keep in mind that by the time you placed me in the “friend zone,” the seeds of a relationship have been planted. The seeds may sprout and grow into something great and beautiful. They may sprout briefly before being washed away. They may not even grow at all. The result will depend on how both of us — you and me — treat them.

Sincerely,
Me.

A Comment and a Pair of Music Videos

You may have noticed that most of my posts for Unrequited Love Awareness Week have been of music videos. This is somewhat intentional. I made a good number of comments about unrequited love in the posts I wrote last year. You can easily find them, too. If you'll notice at the bottom of this post, there are labels. All of my Unrequited Love Awareness Week posts have "Unrequited Love Awareness Week" as one of their labels. Click on that label to see all of my posts which have that label.

Most of the videos which I have posted are listed in the "In music" section of the unrequited love article on Wikipedia. I feel that they fit the theme of the week.

That having been said, here's another from a female perspective. It's a story which depicts a happy ending, which doesn't always happen, but I am hopeful that it will.



And here's another one from Taylor Swift. What's interesting about this one is that the lyrics refer to a specific person.



With both songs, the gender roles could easily be reversed. More so with "Teardrops" than with "You Belong with Me," especially since the name Drew could refer to either a male or a female (Look at Drew Carey and Drew Barrymore for example).

Another post that's not a music video coming soon.