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A trick I use to "read" books much faster is to feed them through Google's TTS but set a much higher than normal read speed. I call it robotting a book. It ta
by jcoffland 8y ago
A trick I use to "read" books much faster is to feed them through Google's TTS but set a much higher than normal read speed. I call it robotting a book.
It takes some getting used to and requires more focus but it's very efficient in terms of information dump. I've been able to increase the speed over time. My wife thinks I'm crazy. I use headphones.
- fouc 8y agoHow do you do this? How fast is the speech? 800wpm? Faster?
- jcoffland 8y agoCurrently I use FBReader TTS on Android. I'm not sure what the wpm is. I should test it with a stopwatch.
- Benjammer 8y agoI do this with informational youtube videos. I crank the speed to 1.5-2x depending on how fast the presenter is talking, but I push it to the point where I feel like I'm just barely keeping up and I try to get faster over time where I'm setting more and more videos to 2x rather than 1.5x.
- codemac 8y agoUse youtube-dl and you can train yourself to go past 2x pretty easily as well.
- the_jeremy 8y agoI use the "video speed controller" extension to set the speed in increments of 0.1x. Works on any HTML5 player (netflix, youtube, most random websites).
- Benjammer 8y agoNice, I figured I'd probably get some of these suggestions posting this on HN, thanks! I'll check these out. I've been meaning to find something that will let me go past 2x.
- User23 8y agoBlind people do this as a matter of course. With practice one can understand absurdly fast reading.
- jodrellblank 8y agoThere's a blind developer giving a talk on Visual Studio accessibility here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94swlF55tVc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94swlF55tVc - and you can hear examples of him using text to speech starting at about 0m 45s but he doesn't say how fast.
- 0000011111 8y agoYa I started doing this while on a bicycling tour and on Air planes. Both situations I can give my brain lots of attention on absorbing the information at a faster rate because my other information inputs are not as busy. The air plane is easiest for 2* speed because I can close my eyes which helps me focus on the sound even more. I use Audible though.