Been a rather interesting week of discovery for me. First I stumbled on an article that talked about hosting your own audiobook server using AudioBookShelf. I have quite the collection spanning a couple of different services. I pretty much gave up an Audible a while ago and now purchase my books from Libro.fm – always DRM free. Once in a great while I still stumble across a book that’s an “Audible exclusive”, so I still have the account but don’t actively use it.

I spent some time earlier in the week getting all my files into the structure/naming convention the software wanted. I was impressed by how quickly AudioBookShelf was able to load up my library, and it looks great. I’m not really interested in streaming away from home, I just download them directly onto my phone and listen from there. No worrying about internet connection! So far so good!

The next thing I just happened to stumble upon was StoryLearning.com. It’s for learning a new language through stories rather than memorizing lists of words and grammar rules. For the first month or so you just read and listen to a story. There are small sets of teaching videos to cover the words used, what’s going on with the grammar, and how to pronounce things for each chapter. We’re built to learn from stories and already use it so much in our culture. One of the concepts is much of the grammar rules will come rather naturally as you go because you are so used to seeing it over and over again. After the first month of immersing yourself in the language through this story, you should start working with a teacher and actually practice what you’re learning. This is the hardest step since no one ever feels ready, but they want you to try as early as you can so you don’t develop bad habits. I’m in the free trial stage at the moment and I have to say I’m enjoying it! I’ve been dreading getting out the flashcards and whatnot, this seems so much more natural! I have such a long way to go, but I think I’ve found the right way for me to actually learn Japanese! 🤞

Spring is here with all the crazy weather. 60’s then snow! Looks like we’re supposed to get up to the 70s next week!

The last posting I mentioned loading GrapheneOS on my Pixel phone. I talked about the “OEM Unlocking” setting being necessary, but I forgot to mention that is a developer setting. You will need to get your phone into “developer mode” before you can see it. If you’re in developer mode and it’s still not there, you will not be able to use GrapheneOS on your phone.

Looks like Plex is raising it’s prices and making some changes that aren’t necessarily for the better. If you’re looking for media streaming software to use with your own movie collection, I still recommend Jellyfin. It’s free, open-source, and does not require an internet connection to work. 😁

And now for something completely different – Nyx has always done this pose and I’m not really sure why:

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you have a great weekend!