#015: Audiobooks from Your Voice, How Early Sailors Navigated, Drone Umbrella

Hi All!

We are pleased to welcome you to this week's edition of Undiscovered, a newsletter with exclusive resources and insights expanding from the material found on our main site - becketu.com.

This edition is helped in part by the support of Boot.dev. Be sure to check them out in the P.S. for a special signup offer and more information. Let's jump into this week's finds:

Making an Audiobook Out of Your Voice

AI tools are popping up left and right, and this may be one of the coolest use cases I have seen recently. Pieter Levels used ElevenLabs to create a clone of his voice, which he is now using for his ebook Read Make.

I recommend checking out his book if you are interested in Indie Hacking or making your own apps, but I think it's mind-blowing we are at a point where we can create an audio book with our own voices. You can find a link to his original tweet here that explores his full process and the tweaks he made along the way.

How Does Math Guide Our Ships at Sea?

I have always been curious about how early sailors navigated the oceans without the help of modern tools. So curious, in fact, I decided to make a video about it!

While researching, I was introduced to many novel discoveries I had no idea about before. You'll learn how vikings used ravens to find land, how the Pacific Polynesians used weather patterns to guide them, and even how modern math logarithms were born. Be sure to check it out.

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The New Reddit?

I'm always exploring what other cool learning sites are out there, and I came across this the other day. It's called Skool - and from what I understand, the primary focus is around building communities across shared interests.

It reminds me of Reddit, but with elements of Github and a bit more visually pleasing layout. Communities vary between free and paid, and I'm not sure if the paid ones are worth it. Feel free to reach out to us and describe your experience with this if you already are a member.

Building a Flying Umbrella

"This guy just flaunted his film making, engineering, storytelling, and so many more skills in one awesome video!" This is the top comment with 2.9k likes for an incredible video I saw recently, and I couldn't agree more.

From the channel I Build Stuff, I guarantee they will have more than the current 69.8k subscribers and 1.15 million views on this video by the time you are reading this. In short, the video shows a mad genius who made an umbrella/drone combo that follows you in the rain to keep you dry. Insane engineering skills and the video editing takes it to the next level.

Final Brief Lesson in Physics

​Massimo (or more commonly known as @Rainmaker1973) is one of the most interesting people I follow on Twitter/X. He curates a variety of the best material in science, art, and tech. He has even been described by Elon Musk as one of the best accounts on the platform.

Below he shared a note from Zach Weinersmith on a brief history of physics:

Massimo @Rainmaker1973 A brief history of physics ― Zach Weinersmith, Science: Abridged Beyond the Point of Usefulness https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1744763936019222726 11:51 AM • Jan 9, 2024 102 Retweets 666 Likes Read 33 replies

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Always wishing you the best,

J.B.