I had not used Elevenlabs text to speech in a long time. Honestly, last time I used it, it was kind of clunky. Hooo boy have they improved! Yesterday, I did something that was really just for myself. Kind of a passion project. Not looking to build a revenue stream at this point, just for fun. Using Claude to help with settings and inputs, I created a new voice - something else I had never done - and generated "The Raven" with the text to speech. You can hear the results here: https://www.youtube.com/@cozygothiclibrary That's the YouTube channel I started to have somewhere to put these. At some point I may bother to automate the whole process, but for now, I am enjoying the relatively manual creation. Entering the text to be converted to speech. Saving the files. Assembling them in Adobe Audition, adding sound effects. Creating the images. Assembling everything in Premiere Pro. Anywho... just thought I'd share something that's kind of related to things we do. It was fun, I learned stuff. Yay :)

CLOUDFLARE FREE ACCOUNT + DOMAIN TRANSFER FROM NETWORK SOLUTIONS ================================================================ The non-obvious thing: this is a TWO-PHASE process. You can't transfer the registration until the domain is already using Cloudflare for DNS. Network Solutions ships the auth code by email up to 3 days later, so plan for ~5-7 day wall clock total. PRE-FLIGHT GOTCHAS (kills the transfer if missed) ------------------------------------------------- - Domain must be registered at NetSol for at least 60 days. - WHOIS registrant contact must NOT have been changed in the last 60 days (ICANN lock). - If the domain expires within ~15 days, renew at NetSol first. - Confirm your TLD is supported by Cloudflare Registrar (most gTLDs yes, some ccTLDs no). PHASE 0: CLOUDFLARE ACCOUNT (2 min) ----------------------------------- 1. Go to dash.cloudflare.com, sign up with email + password, verify email. Free plan, no card needed at this stage. PHASE 1: MOVE DNS TO CLOUDFLARE (required before transfer) ---------------------------------------------------------- This is the part people skip and then get stuck. Cloudflare Registrar refuses to accept the auth code until the zone is Active. 1. Cloudflare dash -> Add a site -> enter your domain -> Free plan. 2. Cloudflare auto-scans your existing DNS records. Eyeball the list against what NetSol shows you. Add anything missing (mail records, subdomains, TXT, etc.). Better to over-import than to break email at cutover. 3. Cloudflare assigns you TWO NAMESERVERS like xxx.ns.cloudflare.com. Copy them. 4. At Network Solutions: log in -> My Domain Names -> pick the domain -> DISABLE DNSSEC FIRST (if on). DS record stale = resolution failure after nameserver change. 5. Still at NetSol: change nameservers to the two Cloudflare gave you. Remove any others. Save. 6. Back to Cloudflare: wait for zone status to flip from Pending to Active. Usually minutes, sometimes up to 24 hours. You can hit

Your AI client launches the MCP server as a subprocess. Three streams, three jobs: - stdin: client writes JSON-RPC 2.0 messages in - stdout: server writes responses back -- valid MCP messages ONLY - stderr: logs, debug output. Nothing else touches this stream That last rule trips people up. Route debug logs to stdout and you corrupt the data stream. The spec is explicit. Stderr for logs, always. Claude Code is the client in this setup. Add your server to ~/.claude/settings.json: ```json { "mcpServers": { "my-server": { "command": "python", "args": ["server.py"] } } } ``` Claude Code launches it as a subprocess, wires the STDIO pipes, and handles the protocol. No transport config needed -- STDIO is the default for local servers. Your server side is one line with FastMCP: ```python server.run(transport="stdio") ``` Why STDIO works for local builds: No network stack. No open ports. No firewall configuration. Pipes every major language handles natively -- Python, TypeScript, Go. When to use STDIO vs. Streamable HTTP: STDIO: Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, personal CLI tools, single-machine setups. Streamable HTTP: multiple concurrent clients, remote access, cross-machine communication. Start with STDIO. Switch when your use case outgrows single-machine. --- Building production MCP systems: skool.com/ai-for-life-3967 ELI5 explanation: Imagine your AI app (Cursor, VS Code) wants to talk to a little helper program you built. It opens up that helper as a child process and they pass notes through three pipes: stdin = AI sends questions in stdout = Helper sends answers back stderr = Helper writes its diary (logs, debug stuff) The trap everyone falls into: stdout is only for clean answers in the agreed format (JSON-RPC). The second you print("debugging...") to stdout, you’ve dumped your diary into the answer pipe and the AI chokes. Logs go to stderr. Always. No exceptions. Why this setup is great for stuff running on your own machine:

Boris is the gentleman at Anthropic that created Claude Code. Just an interesting observation. Boris asked an audience of about 50 attendees, how many use Claude Code CLI? Nearly everyone put their hand up. When Boris asked, how many people use VS Code? One person put their hand up. I think nearly everyone was using an iOS device as well.

Claude Code dropped /buddy today. Your coding companion. Mine is named Moth. Debugging: 84. Wisdom: 3. Honestly the most accurate representation of how I feel at hour three of a session that I've ever seen in software. Happy April Fools from Anthropic. They stuck the landing.