Convert any file VLC can play to mp3

I just felt the need for a script that could extract the audio track of a video, transcode it and save it as an mp3 file … 2 hours later I was finished (get the Gist). 😀 It uses VLC to do hard work. 😉

Thanks to Kris Hom for the inspiration. 🙂

Update 2014-03-01:

  • Check whether VLC is installed
  • Should also work on Linux now
  • Increase default bit rate to 192kbit/s
  • Fixed bug where the file/playlist would repeat endlessly

Update 2014-11-05:

  • Also look for VLC in “~/Application/”

Update 2016-03-05

Interview with Bruce Schneier on Privacy, Security & the Future

Bruce Schneier talks about how the mechanics of privacy changed since the advent of social media, who holds control and power in the new arena, what are real issues and what are just generational differences in dealing with them. He has a lot of good analogies to make his points. 🙂

Authors@Google: Neil deGrasse Tyson

Neil deGrasse Tyson is discussing his book “The Pluto Files” … basically recounting a few thousand years of finding things in the night sky, naming them and building an understanding of what they are … case in point: (now dwarf planet 😉 ) Pluto … including his hypothesis on why Americans in particular get so worked up about Pluto not being a planet any more. 😀

The Y Combinator

I take my head off to Jim, that’s a great way to approach a weird intersection of mathematics and programming. 😉 For those who are curious … he uses a very simple mathematical algorithm to explore how you can express recursions in Lambda calculus and thus “derives” the Y combinator.

Totally useless, but worth every minute. 😉