2010-12-31

A Tale of Two Cities ~ Great Expectations

I've put some etext~audio (via text-to-speech) versions here
in the form of self-extracting executable files:
http://charlesjohnhuffmandickens.blogspot.com/
-and here in the form of "zip" files:
https://sites.google.com/site/charlesjohnhuffmandickens/

Google ~ Oprah Book Club Dickens

Google Librivox Audio: A Tale of Two Cities ~ Great Expectations

Movies:YouTube ~ A Tale of Two Cities (1935)


Netflix instant streaming:
Great Expectations (1946)

Google Books:
A Tale of Two Cities ~ Great Expectations

2010-12-30

Tuft of Flowers by Frost...

http://www.bartleby.com/117/24.html

...And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,
‘Whether they work together or apart.’

2010-12-13

Notes from 'The Heavenly Man'

Our small group friends loaned this book to us.  It's been a blessing.  Encouragement to pray, read the Word, believe God for great things.

Please look into some of the pages yourself:
Back to Jerusalem, give, obedience, pray, revival

2010-12-12

Roger Nicole (1915-2010)...via 'Between Two Worlds'

Take a moment to read Justin's memorial to Roger Nicole (1915-2010):
http://bit.ly/gHg0mp
@between2worlds
BetweenTwoWorlds
I followed-link~read on-line article of Nicole's --'God in the Dock: The Apologetics of C.S.Lewis' - very good.
Made me go searching on GoogleBooks:
GooleBooks ~ Roger Nicole
...also(!):
GooleBooks ~ C.S. Lewis "...full context of "insult to bakers" reference made in Nicole article

2010-12-10

Thinner TTS...



I hop around so many apps -- I thought I'd better come up with a better way to do TTS(at least for me):

If you'd like to try download and try these:

1) Download TTSAnyAppTray_SE.exe to Desktop or Documents folder:
    http://►.ttsanyapp.operaunite.com/Downloads/

2) Run TTSAnyAppTray_SE.exe to extract the software
    (must be done as Administrator).   This creates a folder
    called MyItzyBits under same folder as downloaded to in step 1.

3) Double click ..\MyItzyBits\TTSAnyAppTray.exe

4) Highlight some text in most any application

5) Click the '►' icon in your system tray and 'Play' from that
    context menu.

Note: If you want to download additional~updated phonetics files -- download to same directory as to which you downloaded software and extracted (step 2)

TTSAnyAppTray.exe has additional options:
ReadBrackets ~ check to read numeric footnote, e.g., [1] - default behavior is to not read these type items.
ReadParens ~ check to read numerics found inside parens, e.g., Robert Louis Stevenson(1850-1898) default behavior is to not read these type items.
Phonetics ~ click to open a window which stores ~ saves a list of phonetics "swaps", for example "WAR I=WAR ONE, etc.


Contains:
ProcessQuit.exe, TTSAnyAppTray.exe, TTSAnyApp.exe

Creative Commons License
TTSAnyAppTray by Michael T. Bee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://michael-t-bee-esi.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mailto:michael.t.bee@gmail.com.

Of course, a truly thinner TTS would be a Kindle.  But, on our budget that may be a while.  Meanwhile...

Enhancements:
The phonetics are now "saveable".  Try changing "(default)"  to a specific name and then pressing OK.  If you then click the '...' -- you bring that file up and edit your own set of phonetics.  If you want to have multiple copies -- save as a different name.

Screen shot:

2010-12-07

Sergei Eisenstein ~ Ivan the Terrible



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_the_Terrible_(film)

Sergei Eisenstein ~ Battleship Potemkin



Film by...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Eisenstein

...In 1920, Sergei was transferred to a command position in Minsk, after success providing propaganda for the October Revolution. At this time, Sergei studied Japanese—he learned some three hundred kanji characters which he cited as an influence on his pictorial development,[11] and gained an exposure to Kabuki theatre;[12] these studies led to travel to Japan...

^Italics mine

This is an excellent site for Kanji...
http://www.kanjisite.com/index.html

2010-11-27

Biomimetics

Very interesting piece -- Biomimetics:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/12/big-idea/gaudi-text

ibid. ... gaudi-photography

Google Bimimetics

...more Gaudi:
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/226989/Antoni-Gaudi

Google Video Gaudi

Antonio Gaudi: God's Architect {BBC ~ via YouTube}

http://bit.ly/Beauty_and_the_Beast_1946

We checked out from HCL and have been watching over last couple of days. Very good:
http://bit.ly/Beauty_and_the_Beast_1946


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La_Belle_et_la_Bête_film.jpg

Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a 1946 French romantic
fantasy film adaptation of two french fairy tales...

...Directed by French poet and filmmaker Jean Cocteau, the film stars Josette Day as Belle and Jean Marais as Avenant and The Beast and Prince Ardent. It is widely considered one of the finest fantasy films of all time.

2010-11-21

Les Miserables (1998)



...here's the novel from Project Gutenberg.
It's wrapped in an HTML application that
can play the text back in audio form:
http://www.box.net/shared/y6nkx00eeh

2010-11-05

Crime and Punishment

Here's:

...link to Librivox:
http://librivox.org/crime-and-punishment-by-fyodor-dostoyevsky/

...link to Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_and_Punishment

...link to SparkNotes:
http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crime/

A self-extracting zip of Project Gutenberg text...
http://www.box.net/shared/y5qrc9avks

Trying an opera unite file sharing technique...try the ogg~mp3 files here:
http://esi.michaeltbee.operaunite.com/Crime_and_Punishment_FS/


Trying an opera unite web site sharing technique...if you have an OGG enabled web browser:
http://esi.michaeltbee.operaunite.com/Crime_and_Punishment/

...this uses HTML5 Audio links to play .ogg files - if you don't have an
HTML5 enabled browser -- you'll see 'x' instead of the player links.

2010-11-03

Les Miserables (1935)



...here's the novel from Project Gutenberg.
It's wrapped in an HTML application that
can play the text back in audio form:
http://www.box.net/shared/y6nkx00eeh

Verne TTS books

These should extract to 'Verne,Jules'. Try running the .hta files found in these folders.

http://www.box.net/shared/ehzfqupoy7

2010-10-18

Youtube - The Fabulous World of Jules Verne (1958)



Interesting, but, it is a mish-mash of different vignettes -- it was hard to recognize Verne plot lines(if any)

2010-10-17

Napier's bones

Here's some explanation(s):
Napier's bones - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Napier's Bones -- from Wolfram MathWorld
...a Java applet to try:
http://www.cut-the-knot.org/blue/Napier.shtml
...Google images:


2010-10-16

Purgatorio XVIII

Google ~ Purgatorio XVIII

"Faster! faster! let no time be lost
Through little love," the rest who followed cried,
105 "So zeal for good may make grace green again."

"Oh, do not let us wait to be just or pitiful or demonstrative toward those we love until they or we are struck down by illness or threatened with death! Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!"
-Henri-Frédéric Amiel

Sloth: ...In fact it was first called the sin of sadness. It had been in the early years of Christianity characterized by what modern writers would now describe as melancholy: apathy, depression, and joylessness...

2010-10-11

/BBC-BR-10-11~Best Verses

http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/search/?q=Jer29.11-14a%3BEcc8.14%3BJoh4.14%3BJam5.8-9%3B

Jer29:11-14 Our fortune and times are in God's hands. Setting our hearts on knowing him and finding him is the best plan.

Ecc8.14 Joy in life. "La joie de vivre"(not the Zola novel).

Joh4.14 God let your Water's flow in our hearts.

Jam5.8 God turn our hearts like the compass needle...

2010-10-09

OFFICIAL Somewhere over the Rainbow - Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole

Amaaazingly beautiful...

OFFICIAL Israel "IZ" Kamakawiwoʻole - "What A Wonderful World" Video

This is a really beautiful rendition of the song. It's worth watching also for images of "IZ" and Hawaii...

http://bit.ly/Google_Purgatorio_XIII

http://bit.ly/Google_Purgatorio_XIII

The theology may be medieval -- but, the idea of the "healing of the soul" and it's associated symbols and images are deeply moving. I recently watched the BBC production of the Tempest made back in the 1980's -- there seem to be many parallels -- the island as backdrop, the spirits and island noises, the righting of wrongs...

http://bit.ly/Divine_Comedy_at_ELF



Andrea Bocelli & Zucchero - Miserere

2010-09-27

Astronomy 2010-09-27 10.44






If I steady my binocs ontop my car I can see the moons as displayed here...


Formalhaut to south east...

Capella to north east...

Perseus...

2010-09-26

BBC Animated ~ The Tempest



http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/tempest/TempestText33.html

http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/

Favorite lines:

Me, poor man, my library
Was dukedom large enough...

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked,
I cried to dream again.

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

O brave new world that has such people in it...

2010-08-27

Night Sky ...












Once you've opened adjust for:

Minneapolis/St. Paul AP 44° 53' N 93° 13' W


Please enable JAVATM to use the Mini-AstroViewer night sky map.

2010-08-21

"Courage, dear heart!..."

...But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, "Courage, dear heart..."
http://bit.ly/MTBee_Aslan_Quote_Courage

Fools look to tomorrow; wise men use tonight.
- Scottish proverb

Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other. ~Samuel Johnson

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. ~Mark Twain

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar, 1894

Strength, justice, and the muses... -Yourcenar

2010-08-08

"In This Mountain by Jan Karon"~p.145-160...O.W.Holmes

"In This Mountain by Jan Karon"~p.145-160...

...to reach the port of heaven we must sometimes sail with the wind and sometimes against it--but we must sail and not drift, nor lie at anchor - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Full quote here under his picture: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Sr.

2010-08-06

Lethe ~ to forget the bitter, to finally understand...

Reading Purgatorio - last canto: the river is a means ordained by God to forget the bitter aspects of sin ~ and to remember instead the associated good that was brought about. AIM: Understand the broader plan or ultimately good of God in all things.

2010-07-23

Memoirs of Hadrian By Marguerite Yourcenar, Grace Frick

http://books.google.com/books?

Reading Schedule

My copy is that published by Farrar, Straus and Girous 
ISBN 0-374-50348-6 
ANIMULA VAGULA BLANDULA

D01 R01:   3-20~17 [X]    R02:  20-26~06 [X]
    Proper names ~ Latin phrases:
    Animula Vagula Blandula 
    VARIUS MULTIPLEX MULTIFORMIS
    Vocabulary:           ardor,
                          archipelago 


D02 R03:  29-45~16 [X]    R04:  45-49~05 [X]
    R05:  49-57~08 [X]    R06:  57-60~03 [X]  ~ 08/08/2010 
      People:
Royals:     Trajan,
                          Plotina,

                          Sabina ...

      Poets/Philosophers: Heraclitus,
                          Hesiod[pg],
                          Horace[pg],
                         
Lucan[pg],
                          Lucretius[pg],
                          Ovid[pg],
                         
Virgil[pg]  
      Historians:         Pliny[pg],
                          Tacitus[pg]
     Vocabulary:          adducing

D03 R07:  60-69~09 [X]    R08:  69-74~05 [X]
    ~8/11 ~ volutes,      ~ 8/12 ~ archon... 
            acerbity,
            vexatious

D04 R09:  75-92~17 [X]    ~8/14 ~
       Vocabulary:
panoply,
                   vinous,
                   immured
       Quotes:
    ...to be right to soon...             

TELLUS STABILITA

D05 R10:  95-102~07 [X]    R11: 103-109~06 [X]

D06 R12: 109-135~26 [X]   ~8/21 ~
      People:      Suetonius[pg],
                   Vitruvius

      Vocabulary:  peristyle
      Quotes:      ...to build is to...
                   Strength, justice, and the muses...        

D07 R13: 135-139~04 [X]    R14: 139-149~10 [X]
SAECULUM AUREUM

D08 R15: 154-165~11 [X]    R16: 165-171~06 [X]
    R17: 171-184~13 [X]    R18: 184-189~05 [X]

D09 R19: 189-195~06 [X]    R20: 195-200~05 [X]

D10 R21: 200-211~11 [X]

DISCIPLINA AUGUSTA
D11 R22: 215-226~11 [X]
D12 R23: 233-244~11 [X]    R24: 244-251~06 [X]
D13 R25: 251-261~11 [X]    R26: 262-271~10 [X]    
PATIENTIA

D14 R27: 276-283~07 [X]    R28: 283-296~13 [X

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
D15 R29: 299-315~16 [X]
REFLECTIONS ON THE COMPOSITION OF MEMOIRS OF HADRIAN
D16 R30: 320-347~27 [X] ~ 9/6/2010

2010-05-25

Finally finishing Dr. Zhivago..

It is a moving book. The sense of place, the backdrop of a society in upheaval and transformation, the multiple love stories--all combine to make it a rich work of beauty and life.

2010-05-19

2010-05-09

Erithraea

Sibyl is being inspired by her two genii (above her head).  One hidden - one blowing the fire of inspiration into her

The sibyl's form seems off - another example of Michelangelo's lack of insight to the female form(see "Night" sculpture). 

I am curious about Michelangelo's need to include the sibyls alongside the prophets. Why?




Image from wikipedia commons

Quotes: UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN

Signora, between Austria and Italy, there is a section of the Alps called the Semmering. It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains. They built a train track over these Alps to connect Vienna and Venice. They built these tracks even before there was a train in existence that could make the trip. They built it because they knew some day, the train would come.

2010-05-04

A City of Bells ~ Gems

ON READING

..."In my experience when people once begin to read they go on. They begin because they think they ought to and they go on because they must. Yes. They find it widens life. We're all greedy for life, you now, and our short span of existence can't give us all that we hunger for, the time is too short and our capacity not large enough. But in books we experience all life vicariously."

2010-05-02

ReadCal.hta

It creates an iCal ~ ICS format calendar events for 
a book to be read.  Enter "Item to be Read",
"Pages", "Readings" then press "OK".             
                                                  
A calendar in iCal format is generated in the    
textarea and written to same file location as    
the application.

Sample(A_City_of_Bells_SAMPLE.ICS):
http://www.box.net/shared/g9xvaxyklz

Download:
http://www.box.net/shared/u5su9lf8ss

Creative Commons License
ReadCal by Michael T. Bee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at michael-t-bee-esi.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mailto:michael.t.bee@gmail.com.

Screenshots:

2010-04-30

From "A City of Bells" by Elizabeth Goudge

Masterpiece Theater should get a hold of this:  A soldier wounded in the Boer war comes home to find a new vocation as book seller in a small cathedral town (a city of the bells).  In transit he picks up two marvelous children - Hugh Anthony and Henrietta.

Characters:

Jocelyn...it was a still, warm day after rain, and delicious smells came to Jocelyn through the window, the smell of the gorse and the wallflowers in the cottage gardens, the smell of wood smoke and freshly turned earth and rain-washed grass and fresh beginnings.  A pity to be tired of life in such a world, thought Jocelyn.  If the old earth could wash herself and being again so often and so humbly why could not a man do the same?

Grandmother was small and withered and gave the impression of having shed everything in her passage through life except he essence of herself, and that a sharp, decided, wholesome essence...

Grandfather, who was only seventy-eight and the youngest of the Canons, was quite different.  He too, was very short, but he was the reverse of withered.  He was very round indeed.  Yet the curves of his person did not suggest either indolence or laziness, they suggested rather a tolerant mind and a large heart, and his round, rosy face bore the unmistakable stamp of personal control and austerity, a stamp that is like clarity in the atmosphere, a thing that you cannot describe but only rejoice in...

Henrietta...He came close...and smiled down at her, and instantly with her answering smile, her whole being seemed to come flooding into her face.  She was giving him her friendship with the lovely abandonment of childhood that has not learned yet to hold back for fear the love given should be scorned.  Jocelyn, in this his first close contact with a child, felt not so much touched as stabbed.  This trustfulness and fragility were almost terrifying, for how in the world, as children grow from childhood to maturity and the bloom was rubbed of them, did the sensitive spirit itself escape destruction?

Hugh Anthony at eight years old was compact and rounded like his grandfather.  His blue, astonished eyes were also like his grandfather's, but his circular face, dusted all over with golden freckles, his turned-up nose and flaming red hair were all his own.  Quite his own too was his look of perpetual inquiry.  His whole body seemed at times to be curved into the shape of a question-mark and the world "Why?" was seldom of his lips.

2010-04-23

Thinner TTS...


I hop around so many apps -- I thought I'd better come up with a better way to do TTS(at least for me).

Save the download to your desktop-- run to extract -- then drag TTSAnyAppTray.exe to your Quick Launch or simply double-click it. You'll see a system tray '>' play icon that you can then activate for play~speak back of text with SAPI.  Then, highlight some text -- right-click the app in the system tray and click 'play' -- to pause~stop right-click and click play again (to uncheck).

TTSAnyAppTray.exe has additional options:

ReadBrackets ~ check to read numeric footnote, e.g., [1] - default behavior is to not read these type items.
ReadParens ~ check to read numerics found inside parens, e.g., Robert Louis Stenvenson(1850-1898) default behavior is to not read these type items.
Phonetics ~ click to open a window which stores ~ saves a list of phonetics "swaps", for example "WAR I=WAR ONE, etc.



Download:  
http://►.ttsanyapp.operaunite.com/Downloads/

Contains:
ProcessQuit.exe, TTSAnyAppTray.exe, TTSAnyApp.exe


Creative Commons License
TTSAnyAppTray by Michael T. Bee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://michaeltbeeitprof.blogspot.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mailto:michael.t.bee.itprof@gmail.com.


Of course, a truly thinner TTS would be a Kindle.  But, on our budget that may be a while.  Meanwhile...


Enhancements:
The phonetics are now "saveable".  Try changing "(default)"  to a specific name and then pressing OK.  If you then click the '...' -- you bring that file up and edit your own set of phonetics.  If you want to have multiple copies -- save as a different name.

Screen shot:

2010-03-28

Brunch "As-you-like-it" casserole (egg)


INGREDIENTS

  • 6 slices bread, cut into cubes
  • 2 cups milk
  • Salt
  • Pepper
Additions
  • 1 sliced tomato
  • 1 cup cubed jennie-o turkey sausage
  • 1 teaspoon rosemary
  • 13 x 9 inch casserole dish

METHOD

1 Preheat oven to 350°F. Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Mix in the milk and cheese. Add the bread and carefully stir until all pieces of bread are moistened (don't over mix or the bread may disintegrate). Add additions. Add salt and pepper to taste (if using Italian sausage, you won't need either.) Butter a 13 x 9 inch casserole dish. Pour mix into casserole dish.
2 Bake in oven for 50 minutes to an hour, until the top is browned and 
the center springs back when touched. Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.
Serves 8.
...this is in the oven. Looking good.

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