Intro

Audiobooks, a boon that lets you finish a book 5x faster than reading it. Who cares about retaining knowledge? Just finish the book so you can tell people about it, right? Even better, pair it up with some video games, no one has the time or patience to just sit. This is how you can read 55 books a year, thats more than a book a week.

Unfortunately, most audiobooks are locked behind a paywall. Worse, even if you sell your soul to amazon and pay them 200/mo for BOOKS like the nerd you are, most of the good books require “credits” to read. Not to worry though! Our favorite benevolent conglomerate generously provides us with ONE credit a month. ONE.

It is said that most crimes are done not because of malice, but out of desperation. I too, was desperate. One book a month just wasn’t enough to fuel my addiction, I needed more. What option is one left with in situations like these? I picked up my pirate hat

One liner

I quickly found a website which lets me listen to audiobooks for free. But that wasn’t enough, I needed them books injected in my veins, on the tips of my fingers, in my terminal. I was granted a vision by god, my fingers merely a vessel to fabricate his creation, when the vision ended, I saw this one liner on my terminal.

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$ mpv $(echo $(curl -s $(echo "https://hdaudiobooks.net//?s=needful+things" | tr ' ' '+') | grep -A 3 "<h2>" | grep -oP 'href="\K[^"]+' | head -n 1 | xargs curl -s | grep -oP 'http[^\"]+\.mp3') | fzf)

I pressed enter, and was greeted with mpv streaming an audio fine, a voice, “This is audible…” it continued. It was the sound of Amazon’s bank account being emptied, the sound of Jeff bezos not being able to by another yacht, the cha-ching sound in reverse. I almost orgasmed.

The script

Clearly this one liner was too divine to share. Sharing this online in its raw form could lead to a second ILOVEYOU worm situation, but instead of deleting your data it makes you cum. I couldn’t allow that, the one liner had to be contained. I quickly deciphered god’s words, and divided them into 5 parts so that no one can be hurt pleasured by it, I divided it into 5 lines of code, more suitable for mere mortals to comprehend.

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2
3
4
5

q=$(echo "https://hdaudiobooks.net//?s=$@" | tr ' ' '+')
html=$(curl -s "$q")
name=$(echo "$html" | grep "<h2>" | cut -d'"' -f4 | sed -e 's/&#8211/\-/g;' | fzf | sed -e 's/\-/\&#8211/g')
links=$(curl -s "$(echo "$html" | grep "$name" | cut -d'"' -f2 | head -n 1)" | grep "mp3" | cut -d'"' -f14)
mpv $(echo "$links" | grep "=$(echo "$links" | cut -d "=" -f 2 | fzf)")

Fin

And there you have it, folks. A tale of desperation, ingenuity, and divine intervention. Who needs almighty Amazon when you have a terminal and a bit of Terry Davis in you? Remember: with great power comes great responsibility, make them bleed as much as you can, share the love (but maybe not the one-liner), and keep your pirate hat handy.

And hey, if Jeff Bezos ever comes knocking on your door, just tell him you’re helping to balance the scales of the universe. After all, everyone deserves a good audiobook or fifty. Happy listening, you rebels.