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Show HN: To Listen to Any Page Prefix the URL with Playthis.link

12 points by soheil 6y ago

I was tired of having to constantly scramble to find a podcast I want to listen to when going for a walk or just running on the treadmill. I, however, usually have an abundance of blog posts or articles around the web that I'd like to read. The problem is walking is not very conducive to reading. So I made this quick and dirty site that pretty much works anywhere, no app install, no copy paste, no nothing. Just add the domain playthis.link before any URL in your browser and hit enter. It will redirect to an audio file that automatically starts playing. You don't need to click a 2nd button to play the file either. It just starts reading the text right away. You can do this on your phone and just pick it up and go for a hike. Example: Amazing blog post: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ Audio version: https://playthis.link/https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/

gitgud 6y ago
Woah this works really well! I love these handy little web projects. I just tried it with a random site on the front page: - [Original] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/guerrilla-public-service/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/guerrilla-public-serv... - [Audio] https://playthis.link/https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/guerrilla-public-service/ https://playthis.link/https://99percentinvisible.org/episode... Reminds me of the old Youtube Downloader "ssyoutube". I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist anymore, but all you had to do was prefix the Youtube URL with ss and it would take you to the download page.
- terrycody 6y ago
  I happen to know that URL too, but later seems the owner stopped the project and redirection domain is on sale. Of course there are many similar download websites online, though not same and easy as the "little trick" original one.
terrycody 6y ago
Thanks for crafting this awesome tool, btw, what the tech stack behind this? I guess it could become much better if you can integrate the Amazon polly(text to speech engine), but that also will cost money for sure, for a free and casual usage, current version is good enough!
- soheil 6y ago
  nginx + php to do the redirect python to talk to Google Text Speech API newspaper python lib for article extraction Google Text Speech API Google Cloud Platform for hosting on a single core Debian
HarshaSaiKC 6y ago
Did you create any GitHub repo based on this project? Btw, this is awesome!!
- soheil 6y ago
  No. Would that be something you think you'd contribute to?
- soheil 6y ago
  Just made a repo https://github.com/soheil/playthis.link https://github.com/soheil/playthis.link
hdang31416 6y ago
Thank you for building this. This could be a great tool for vision impaired people.

12 points by soheil 6y ago

gitgud 6y ago

Woah this works really well! I love these handy little web projects. I just tried it with a random site on the front page: - [Original] https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/guerrilla-public-service/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/guerrilla-public-serv... - [Audio] https://playthis.link/https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/guerrilla-public-service/ https://playthis.link/https://99percentinvisible.org/episode... Reminds me of the old Youtube Downloader "ssyoutube". I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist anymore, but all you had to do was prefix the Youtube URL with ss and it would take you to the download page.

terrycody 6y ago
I happen to know that URL too, but later seems the owner stopped the project and redirection domain is on sale. Of course there are many similar download websites online, though not same and easy as the "little trick" original one.

terrycody 6y ago

Thanks for crafting this awesome tool, btw, what the tech stack behind this? I guess it could become much better if you can integrate the Amazon polly(text to speech engine), but that also will cost money for sure, for a free and casual usage, current version is good enough!

soheil 6y ago
nginx + php to do the redirect python to talk to Google Text Speech API newspaper python lib for article extraction Google Text Speech API Google Cloud Platform for hosting on a single core Debian

HarshaSaiKC 6y ago

Did you create any GitHub repo based on this project? Btw, this is awesome!!

soheil 6y ago
No. Would that be something you think you'd contribute to?
soheil 6y ago
Just made a repo https://github.com/soheil/playthis.link https://github.com/soheil/playthis.link

hdang31416 6y ago

Thank you for building this. This could be a great tool for vision impaired people.