EconoBen

I built a pipeline to automatically convert blog posts into audio using OpenAI's TTS API. The implementation handles chunking long articles (due to the 4096 character limit), generates separate audio files for each chunk, then combines them into a single MP3.

Key features:

- Scrapes and processes blog content for TTS conversion - Handles OpenAI's character limits with intelligent text chunking - Combines multiple audio files into one seamless track - Supports different voice options (alloy, echo, fable, etc.)

Cost is surprisingly reasonable: converted 14 blog posts for $4.20 total ($0.30 per post).

The post includes complete code examples and walks through the entire process from text extraction to final audio output. Great for adding accessibility features or creating audio versions of written content.

Tech stack: Python, OpenAI TTS API, pydub for audio processing.

In this post I walk you through how to host your own, private and secure LLM from anywhere. Here I use Synology and Raspberry Pi, but the principles are largely universal.

In which I discuss the idea of writing yearly reviews in the first place, some professional wins this year, some personal goals I'd like to achieve, and the state of my health.

Hey thanks! I like writing. This one took me a few days to write, but formed inchoately in the back of my head for years. Sometimes it's nice to finally just let the words spill out on "paper".

I wish I could emphasize this comment more. Thank you for posting this. This reflects my thoughts exactly and the purpose of the post. There are so many more people whose stories you don't hear, who go through much harder times than I did, and who do not "make it" like I have.

If anything, I think that should be the story. You make choices to try to dig yourself out, and you end up digging yourself further down the hole.

really appreciate all the thoughtful comments! Better than I could have imagined. Thanks all.

fixed.

yeah, absolutely abnormal.

doesn't hurt, apparently.

Oh my gosh! I didn't know this was a trend. This is somehow very reassuring to hear, all these years later. Thanks for mentioning this.

tell your friends, hah!

A few years ago, I set myself the goal of paying off all my student loans before I'm 30. I turn 30 in two months. And as of this month, I paid them off. All $194k of them...

Obviously, this was a significant milestone for me. So, I took this opportunity to reflect on my journey so far. How I even came to owe that much money, how I overcame this obstacle, and what it all means to me.

By the way, only tangentially related, but my favorite book on standardization is Nature’s Metropolis by William Cronon. It’s inspired a lot of my interest in the intersection of economics, tech, and nature and how we impose standards upon the world.

I’m not going to try to convince you in particular one way or another. I’ve just been reflecting about what you’ve said in general, because I think it’s insightful and it’s gotten me thinking.

While I think your analogy is more or less accurate, I think any reasonable economist/person could interpret whether hiring standardization is good or bad.

For instance, it’s very easy to interpret a standardization of practices as making the labor market more efficient as most people will know exactly what to expect, more or less, in the process. So they can study or prepare for a job and apply to a multitude of places. Someone could probably write a paper on how standardization of hiring processes has ultimately led to more people hired more, from a more diverse number of places and cultures, than it ever had in the past.

And of course another person could find issues in this for sure.

I end up feeling there are trade-offs with both and certainly processes can be improved. But I think that’s a more micro problem. Like most places don’t in actuality do the exact same hiring process so you can’t really paint with too broad a brush. At least in tech.

But standardization is actually a pretty amazing phenomenon and it can’t be understated how much it equalizes many areas of economies.

On the other hand, I’ll also point out it can disenfranchise those who wouldn’t do well in that standardized process. I’ve felt this in my own life with grad school entry processes. Unless you are the very very best on paper, the top schools ignore you. That’s been utterly dehumanizing and makes me very unhappy. So I really do feel it.

But again, pros and cons. Anyway, thanks for posting this.

Welcome to the most impactful API you've never heard of!

From the creators of NormConf the conference, happening December 15.

Using latent-space embeddings we synthesize every arxiv deep learning finding in the last 10 years into a k8s cluster. Then we decompose the logits into a novel, multi-headed attention model with distributed compute across 13 time zones.

Completely free. Completely virtual. 20 minute stalks. Register today!

List of speakers:

Vicki Boykis Vincent Warmerdam Tim Hopper Lynn Cherny Matthijs Brouns Guenia Izquierdo JD Long Helena Sarin Zachary Blackwood Joel Grus Peter Sobot Jeremy Jordan Shreya Shankar Jowanza Joseph Ethan Rosenthal Roy Keyes Rhian Thomas Caitlin Hudon Sean Taylor Luca Belli Ben Labaschin James Kirk Julia Silge Brandon Rohrer Peter Baumgartner Brianna McHorse Katie Bauer Juliet Hougland Josh Wills Rose Weigely Chris Albon

Yeah this seems like a copy

I’m just discovering this site even exists and it’s shutting down… Are there similar sites out there people recommend?

Yeah, that would be confusing. I'd personally suggest making them a bit more specific and, if you can, creative—just not so creative as to be unintuitive to their purpose.

So you're suggesting that instead of names, we refer to UUID's when talking about a service?

Heads Down is a Mac app that lives in your ribbon. With a click of the mouse, temporarily block distracting websites and applications to encourage "heads down" time.

Inspired by a tweet from Vicki Boykis, Heads Down is a free, easy solution to a common productivity problem: access to distracting websites and apps. https://twitter.com/vboykis/status/1357047574943924224?s=20