I commute daily. Many of my coworkers joke that I live on the other side of the state. It probably feels that way when many of them live five  minutes from work. However, for our family, its a lifestyle choice, and so I spend at least two hours a day on the road (I can hear the real commuters out there going, "Wuss! Two hours?"). That's when I discovered the world of free (and legal) audio on the Internet.

Back in 2005, Robert X. Cringely and friends introduced NerdTV, a great series of interviews with technology industry luminaries. NerdTV made the interviews available under a creative commons license, and in all sorts of formats. I began burning CDs of the weekly interviews, and listening to them on the commute.

I guess it was a revelation for me. What a great idea! I expanded from there, listening to all sorts of stuff, though still burning it to CD (the iPod-toting expert commuters are shaking their heads in shame). Also about that time, my sister-in-law and her family gave us a CD-based set of college lectures about Greek history from The Teaching Company. It was awesome, and I was firmly hooked. But, the CD burning thing was getting tiresome.

Ultimately, my wife saved me from myself, and got my son and I SanDisk Sansa MP3 players. She also got me one of those handy FM transmitters that let you listen to the player via the in-car sound system. Since then, I've been using the daily commute to explore all sorts of topics, current events, and catch up on a lot of fiction reading. And my son and I have been exchanging all sorts of free audio treasures that we find on the Internet.

There's a lot of free, public domain stuff out there, in addition to the multitudes of free podcasts. So, I thought, why not share around our discoveries. Each Friday, I'll post about free audio and audio sites we've found on the Internet. I hope you get the kick out of it that I have.

Audio du Jour

  Speaking of treasures reminded me of one of the first things my son recommended to me: "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson, and read by Adrian Praetzellis. I'd never taken time to read the book, and had always wanted to (now my English teachers are shaking their heads). It's a great treat! Also, Adrian Praetzellis is incredible as a voice actor. Every voice of every character is distinct and you know darn well who is speaking at any point. I highly recommend this one.

This free audio book is found, as you notice if you click through, on LibriVox.org. LibriVox utilizes volunteers to record materials in the public domain. If bits had weight, then LibriVox would have tons of audio. Yeah. Anyway, it's an awesome site, and in subsequent weeks, we'll delve for other treasures to be found there.

See you next Friday with more.