I tried to use every single free offline text-to-speech engine that would run on Ubuntu 24.04 without too much hassle to see if any of them sounded natural. pico2wave was the overall winner so far, but it is not perfect.

I've been noticing a gap between the "AI" SOTA and what is actually packaged well enough to be usable by a general audience.

Also played a bit more with OpenAI Whisper: askubuntu.com/questions/24059/automatically-generate-subtitles-close-caption-from-a-video-using-speech-to-text/1522895#1522895 Mind blowing performance and perfect packaging as well, kudos.

Announcements:

When doing "innovative" things that seem "smart", you often end up noticing that they were actually "old" and "dumb", and that you should instead be doing another "innovative smart" thing.

Therefore, there is always a possibility that at some point Ciro Santilli's intended project for donation money will change halfway.

Ciro however makes the following pledge: everything that comes out of donation money work will be:as always.

This does not apply to contract work obviously, only donations.

Main article: Section "Updates"

Apparently fundamentally LEDs in principle work as photodetectors, but

Direct and indirect band gaps is an important part of why diodes don't emit light apparently.

Bibliography:

Edd Sorenson is the greatest cave body recovery diver ever, performing incredible stunts of endurance and bravery in his many body recoveries.

He even saved a few cave divers alive, which is extremely rare as almost all incidents lead to deaths.

Besides that, he was also one of the early proponents of sidemount diving, a method of diving that allows divers to enter through smaller restrictions than the traditional back mounted diving. The method was initially considered dangerous, but after technical developments which Sorenson contributed to became the dominant form of cave diving.

Sorenson also made technical and educational contributions to civilian rebreather diving, which he mastered and often used in his many body recovery missions, as the method allows him to stay underwater for longer periods of time.

On top of all that, he's a great storyteller, which together with his physique and demeanor helps to cement his fame.

His name is Danish: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sørensen He looks incredibly military, but apparently isn't: youtu.be/K7m03k1k-Bk?t=171 He had an excavation business in Portland, Oregon, and wanted FIRE movement to Florida. He got a bit hurt by by the dot-com crash, but still managed to move after liquidating all assets.

This is another perfect example of how shitty our world is. The dude wasted his life until he was 40, and then only when he started doing what he really loved did he become mega famous and succesful. Video "What Would You Do If Money Were No Object by Alan Watts" comes to mind strongly yet again... After the move he relocated to the Jackson Blue Spring area.