The mission of the Read-Along Adventures site is to assemble the audio and scanned pages from every Read-Along book ever created -- these were the short picture books that came with a 45RPM record that narrated them, with cues to turn the page as necessary. Where possible, the curator has recreated the Read-Alongs as Flash apps. There's even audio for the Haunted Mansion record. How lovely!
Read-Along Adventures (Thanks, TimK!)
Here is a fun quiz where you must identify whether the furniture in the photos are works by minimalist artist Donald Judd, or cheap flat pack furniture from a big box store! Donald Judd, or Cheap Furniture?... More.
We've been following artist Shepard Fairey's work here on Boing Boing for some time now. A disclaimer, first: I love his work, we have mutual friends, he strikes me as a stand-up guy. Last year, Pesco was among the first to blog the Obama "Hope" poster which quickly grew far more popular than anyo... More.
Photographer Chris Jordan has published a series of images identified as dead albatross on Midway Atoll whose bodies are filled with bits of plastic they ingested. Midway Island is an anemic little line of sand and coral reefs, way out in the middle of the Pacific. Now, I don't know Mr. Jordan ... More.
Above is the only film footage of Anne Frank, the inspirational 13-year-old diarist who hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic before finally dying in a concentration camp. The brief clip shows Frank, then 12, looking out of her window during her neighbor's wedding on July 22, 1941, one year befo... More.
Philip Greenspun explains how Wall Street makes billions -- by bilking taxpayers. Because of the Collapse of 2008 financial reforms, the big investment banks are able to borrow money from the U.S. government at 0 percent interest. Then they can turn around and buy short-term bonds that pay 2 or 3 p... More.
Mark Frauenfelder, Cory Doctorow
David Pescovitz and Xeni Jardin
Editors
Rob Beschizza
Managing Editor
Lisa Katayama, Maggie Koerth-Baker
and Brandon Boyer
Contributing Editors
Sysadmin
Lead Moderator
Moderator
Moderator
Finance
Legal
Legal
Insurance
Developer
Friend
Ken Snider
Antinous
Arkizzle
Avram
Terry Thurlow
Rob Rader/MS&K
Marc Mayer/MS&K
Ed Szylko/EJMS
Dean Putney
Jason Weisberger
John Battelle
Partner
Federated Media
Advertising
RSS Feed
Finally! The Interwebs has reached it's potential!
i think i still have the STAR WARS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ones around here somewhere...
i remember putting these on my MICKEY MOUSE record player and being amused for hours with these 'movie stories'... i think it would be hilarious to do one for THE THING or THE FLY or something scary for Halloween...
DROID WORLD!
I had one for The Return of the King. It had stills from the cartoon? I'm not sure if it was technically a Read Along Adventure, but it had a record and a book, and the text if not being exactly what was spoken was close to it. Been a while since I looked at it, it disappeared during middle school. :( I think a buddy grabbed it for the cool orc designs.
I know I still have the Star Wars one- so old "A New Hope" is a phrase never seen on it. Oddly more likely to be played than "the Planet of the Hoojibs" (awesome title!) because I have a record player but not a tape deck.
Man, put my check in the "me too" column for having the Star Wars "Magic Media Talking Book" - I nearly wore that record out when I was a kid.
Cassette? Pfft... poseurs. Real people use 45 rpms. (Empire Strikes Back and ET baby!)
More disturbingly, why are these files EXEs? At the very least it's completely antisocial not to use a standard archive file, but these are EXECUTABLE files. Why would anyone run code from a random website on their own computer? Seems like a virus or trojan just waiting to happen.
@Cassette -
Only some are EXE files. The best are the Flash files as with Haunted Mansion.
Even if the files are completely safe, they are completely useless to a Mac user. So much for the internet reaching its full potential.
*runs to closet* I HAVE TRON!
Blog hasn't been updated in over a year...I wonder if the guy is still working on the site at all. Regardless, I went over to my shelf and dug through my Sesame Street 45's box where me and my sisters kept our records and found a few choice gems. Among others, I have Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, but my favorite of all is the flimsy plastic record from the McDonald's contest back in (apparently) 1988 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvhDw5bQbd8). God, I can still recite the song almost verbatim after all these years (even the talking parts..."OK! [AH OK!] Here we go! [Here we go!]"
I think this record alone inspired Barenaked Ladies to start a band.
I'm a Mac user and really enjoyed the site. There aren't that many exe files. The only one I came across after downloading a dozen was Mary Poppins.
Also here's a similar site I found:
http://childrensrecordsandmore.blogspot.com/
The exe's work fine for me with Wine on Ubuntu. Ok, I only tried the Haunted Mansion and Star Wars: A New Hope, but if those work, the rest of them probably do too.