Extracting Audio (mp3s) from FLVs

I'm a podcast junkie. Listening to lectures, radio shows, conferences, talks, interviews, readings, etc makes my commute...palatable...enjoyable, even.

Recently, i've been stymied by the migration of many interesting discussion and conferences from audio (mp3) podcasts to video archives. This is fine and well, and I understand the reasons for this...but I just don't consume videos (i'm not going to watch a video in my car, and i'm not with-it enough to have a decent "viewing internet videos at home" setup)...and most times, the videos in question are either "Person at podium" or "talking head with skype headset," meaning, terribly pointless to watch.

Anyways, I found a fairly decent way to pull mp3 audio files out of download FLVs (Flash video, which is the format many video collections are saved as). The usual caveats apply - this probably isn't that new and there probably are hundreds of other (better?) ways to do this...but here goes:

1. If you don't have it, download and install the Adobe AIR runtime.
2. Download and install RichFLV (a free, light, pretty rad Flash video editing tool).
3. Download the (Flash) video of your choice. You can do this manually (root around in the source or linked media of a page...or, if you're lucky the site you're downloading from actually provides a simple "download" link), but i've been using an app called Orbit Downloader...it is kind of un-slick and makes me feel kind of bad about using it, but it gets the job done somewhat expiditiously if not intuitively (and can pull out all files from a page, not just Flash videos...which is cool but also makes it feel like overkill for my needs).
   
4. Open the downloaded Flash video in RichFLV.
5. Within the Export menu (screenshot), select "Audio (mp3)" and...voila, audio file (maybe of note: the exported mp3 lacks any metadata, so that may need to be added if you're so inclined).

I've been briefly looking at ways to extract audio from other video formats (like mp4)...but haven't had much luck in finding a solution that doesn't feel like "just enough additional work to be annoying."

Miles' Big Week

After starting the visit off with a tumble out of his crib (which led to a failed attempt at moving to a "big boy bed"), Miles had a big week with Grandma.

On Monday they took a trip into Boston to hang out at a pool:



...and take a swan boat ride:



And yesterday, they went to a beach in Gloucester:

No groove, no balls

Probably one of the better, doper (if I may say so) tracks i've heard in long time, Matias Aguayo's "Minimal" on, of course, Kompakt...from Boomkat:

"Taking a well aimed pop at the overcrowded and omnipresent techno
style, Aguayo sidesteps the genre's conventions by including a full on
vocal line ripping the piss out of music with "no groove, no balls"
over a slinky Latin disco new wave type backing rhythm that should
definitely be finding favour on the most self aware floors around. The
dry-as-fuck fun doesn't stop there though, Marcus Rossknecht's remix
beefs up the bassline and the disco elements but sticks faithfully
close to the original..."

Be sure to listen to Marcus Rossknecht's mix. The guitar!

As heard at around 49:00 into this Dailysession mix from Minimen.

Take a ____ with Google Maps

Google maps recent release of walking directions as an option is pretty cool, but I believe they could expand the idea a bit more...here are some direction options I'd like to see:

• Moseying
• Ramblin'
• Fleeing
• Rampaging
• Staggering
  

What I've Been Listening To (?? - 7/20/08)

• Pantha Du Prince @ Bar Americas (Mexico - 03/06/08)
• Neal Stephenson - Science Fiction as a Literary Genre (via ForaTV) - "Speculative fiction thrives because it is idea porn"
• Chris Carlsson - Nowtopia (mp3, via KUOW) - "...there's a creative social revolution going on, but not on the job...hobbies and side projects are where the real work is being done."
• Richard Feynman - In Conversation (mp3 via abc.net.au) - His first story recalling how his father taught him to think critically is pretty powerful.
  

Bread Lines

Replacing mentions of "iPhone" or "3G iPhone," (or similar) with the word "bread" in today's big "news" story:

• Live! From the Fifith Ave. bread line (CNNMoney)
• $200 for a spot in the bread line (C|Net)
• Want bread? Get in line. (Washington Post)
• Dispatch from an all-night bread line (SeattlePI)
• Eager Customer Snags First Place in Bread Line (Wired)
• Bread line in downtown Chicago dampened by foul weather (Ars Technica)
• The bread wait in Portland (C|Net)
• Expect a Long Wait in Line for Your Bread (bMighty)
• Hundreds Line Up In Anticipation of Bread (NY1)
  

My long-weekend checklist

(with admiration of and apologies to Minor Tweaks)

Contract debilitating fever hours after leaving work on Thursday.

Amaze friends with feverish falsetto cover of the B-52's "Roam" on Rockband.

Find that, despite the name, "chills" do not make humid days at all bearable.

Gently and lovingly crunch front end of car into large concrete step at end of driveway.

Recover fully from weekend fever just in time for work on Monday.

Awesomeness Accelerator

Tim O'Brien interviews Brian Cox (an experimental physicist with the University of Manchester) about the Large Hadron Collider...the hugely awesome particle accelerator switching on at the end of the summer...in a great introduction to the science behind (and expected from) the project.

The full transcript is up here, and you can also download the interview as an MP3 from that page.

Cox also takes some time to address the fears that the LHC is "Satan's star gate" (a must-watch!) and the potential source of universe-devouring black holes as "the biggest pile of shit that I've ever heard in my life."