---
title: Things I Learned - 14 Jul 2024
date: 2024-07-14T00:00:00+00:00
categories:
  - til
description: I explored VS Code venv setups, the benefits of writing for oneself, and why overthinking backfires. I also compared text-to-speech pricing across OpenAI, Deepgram, and cloud providers, noting Elevenlabs' significantly higher costs.
keywords: [vs code, jupyter, text-to-speech, elevenlabs, wu wei, knowledge project, deepgram, venv]
---

This week, I learned:

- Carlton's TDS session
  - Always create a new venv via VS Code when starting a training session. Helps reproduce issues (though I could use Colab instead)
  - Create an empty .ipynb notebook and double-click it. That's another way (though slower) to open a Jupyter notebook
- Share Parrish Knowledge Project podcast. Three generations of wealth
  - There is a big difference between liking animals and being a vet. Between liking education and being a teacher.
  - Even if no one reads your writing, you benefit from the writing.
  - Emotional.crises like 9/11 or Covid are far easier for markets to recover from
- Hidden brain podcast. White trying to hard can back fire on you
  - Sometimes conscious thinking makes our automated responses of sports music, dance are great examples
  - Instead, SURRENDER to something outside of you. Like playing with kids. Exercise also sends blood away from brain. Drugs. ChatGPT.
  - It's called Ue in Chinese philosophy
- A quick check on the pricing of text to speech models
  - OpenAI TTS: $15/1M chars [Ref](https://openai.com/api/pricing/)
  - Deepgram Aura: $15/1M chars [Ref](https://deepgram.com/pricing)
  - Elevenlabs Scale: $165/1M chars [Ref](https://elevenlabs.io/pricing)
  - Google TTS Neural2: $16/1M chars [Ref](https://cloud.google.com/text-to-speech/pricing?hl=en)
  - Azure AI Speech: $15/1M chars [Ref](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/details/cognitive-services/speech-services/)
  - AWS Polly Neural TTS: $16/1M chars [Ref](https://aws.amazon.com/polly/pricing/)