Posts by Cassius

Kyle you are the MAN! In 20 minutes I will have my first customized version of the full Vatican sayings, with Ivona text to speech, custom background. Lots of details to play with but I can see what can be done with this. Great!!

And here is the evidence we are making progress - thanks Kyle!

And BINGO it is working!

You're the answer man, all right! OK I am implementing that now.....

I will appreciate anything you can do, Kyle. Even that kind of performance would be ok, because it should be possible to generate short runs as a test, and then if someone wants to do longer ones then they can load it and wait for the result. So far all my tests are running into errors, so I presume what's going on is that without an installer to load all the required libraries, an online version would be best. And if you were to try for an installer you'd probably run into the classic Windows vs Mac vs Linux incompatibilities. Anything you can do will be appreciated and if you end up not being able to do anything, we'll still have the same options with other software!

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./text-scroller.py", line 65, in <module>
    font=FONT_FAMILY, method='label')
  File "/home/xxx/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/moviepy/video/VideoClip.py", line 1177, in __init__
    raise IOError(error)
IOError: MoviePy Error: creation of None failed because of the following error:

convert-im6.q16: not authorized `@/tmp/tmpfTeog4.txt' @ error/property.c/InterpretImageProperties/3516.
convert-im6.q16: no images defined `PNG32:/tmp/tmpjUZsOf.png' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3258.
.

.This error can be due to the fact that ImageMagick is not installed on your computer, or (for Windows users) that you didn't specify the path to the ImageMagick binary in file conf.py, or that the path you specified is incorrect

Well Hiram I think the point in issue in this part of the discussion is the part of Marx that is devoted to "class warfare" and the historical determinism that everything in human history derives from that conflict. A quick google indicates as:

"the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." (The first line of communist manifesto (1848) reads.)

I am sure others ( Martin ) have a much more recent handle on that than I do.

I gather that what Ben was reading into Wilson's speech is that she reads Lucretius' history lesson as supporting the class warfare theory of history.

I think Ben thinks that's a gross misreading of Lucretius, and I would agree. The whole "economic man" orientation of Marxism, which is what I gather drives a lot of their analysis, is not something that's consistent with Epicurean theory, as it is not the issue of how to deal with money and material goods that drives the philosophy, but the basic orientation that tells us what money and which material goods to pursue in the first place.

Actually this is very close to the issue we are discussing in several threads. If we strip out the underlying physics and epistemology and theory of pleasure, and go right to the "live frugally" part, then we can make Epicurus look like almost a twin of Marx, and that is what a lot of people seem to want to do.

I think that's a terrible mistake and turns the philosophy on its head, and the way to avoid it is to stay with Epicurus and focus on the physics and the epistemology and then the discussion of what pleasure and virtue are all about, and only THEN move to the issue that is involved in Vatican Saying 63 -- because it is in fact as great an error to live too frugally as it is to live to luxuriously.

Welcome @davidarm ! When you get a chance please introduce yourself and let us know your background and interests in Epicurus!

Great! Keep us posted. I am going to restart and work with a much smaller file and see if I can generate something

OK if it takes a long time then maybe I am good! I will let it run and just see what happens.

I presume that part of the time is that it is generating the speech to text, and I have an mp3 file that I am ready to use, but I decided to run it first using the Google TTS just so I could step through making the program work as you yourself have it running. I did substitute my own text file (the Vatican Sayings, in pure ascii) in place of yours.

WOW that would be even better! I am afraid I am asking too much!

At any rate, I have all the python dependencies loaded, I believe, and the program appears to start, (the selection box moves to the next line) and there are no error messages, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything very fast, and I don't see a process I can identify as running. It did however create an audio.mp3 file that was not there in the beginning

I should maybe say I am running debian stretch (MX-18)

THANK you Kyle! I am working with my first effort now....

Edit: Well it is taking me a while to install dependencies but I am getting there. No doubt most people of normal experience will not be able to do that, so this is something that can be handled through an installer?

What kind of text-to-speech engine are you using? I am familiar that Androld has something but is your engine something that is native to Windows or Mac or Linux or Python or what?

In the end I am thinking that human voices will be the main use of this, but as text-to-speech improves (IF it improves) then that will be viable too. I say "if" because my experience was that the Ivona packages were leading the field before they were bought (by Amazon I think) and effectively removed from the market.

I can imagine using this in at least two ways: (1) using it to produce just the scrolling text, and then dropping the resulting video into a video editing program to customize the area around the box with the text. (2) as is, just as you are doing, combining a user-spoken MP3 with the text that is being spoken. You're adding options that will make option (2) very viable, but if it gets to be to huge a project, option (1) should always be workable too. My experience is that it's next to impossible to drop a large amount of text into any standard video-editor program, so this will solve that problem elegantly!

More greatness! Thank you!

Hmm did you mean to include a link to a video?

Amazing! I am out but will try as soon as I get home. Thank you!

Elli: Because according to Myth Cyprus is the birthplace of Venus/Aphrodite.

Cassius: I never knew that! Venus was born in Cyprus? Why Cyprus? Is there some mountain or temple or some other feature that connected her or her parents with Cyprus? https://visitworldheritage.com/.../d4a87816-4a22-44d0...
visitworldheritage.com

Birthplace of Aphrodite | World Heritage Journeys of Europe
Birthplace of Aphrodite | World Heritage Journeys of Europe 3d view! Is one of these rocks the important one? https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%…D-YJ8kpmkgB976k
360cities.net

The birthplace of Venus, Cyprus 360 Panorama | 360Cities

This question isn't chargeable to Epicurus or Lucretius, certainly, because the engraving in this photo is only a couple of hundred years old. But I wonder why, in this portrayal made for the opening of Lucretius Book One, the artist decided to feature a map of CYPRUS at the bottom left of the drawing. And specifically - it says Cyprus - in case anyone didn't recognize the shape. Is Cyprus a particularly delightful place, or something? Or thought to be so in old England? Or is there in fact a connection I am missing?

It looks like Amazon now has a range of 3d printers that cost under $200.00, so this is light years ahead of where we were when I scanned my Epicurus bust 5+ years ago (I know I am mixing the technologies - printing is not the same as scanning) but I am not up on the latest developments on how to scan.

Edit: Looks like prices have plummeted there too.

Yes Joshua I think that is a great goal. We ought to be able to design nice-looking items for which the 3d design files can be downloaded by anyone and printed at home. We worked on that in the past with the model of the Epicurus bust, and those are out there "somewhere" but they were not as quality ("sharpness") as could be done today. We really need to restart that project from scratch (re-scan the Epicurus busts) and then come up with a range of things that can be printed.