added ffmpeg line. i tested it: it works.

bash/feed-reader

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+feed2exec \
+    parse \
+    https://www.nasa.gov/rss/dyn/breaking_news.rss \
+    --output echo \
+    --args '{item.title}'

bash/scripts.org

@@ -33,3 +33,17 @@ these lines are taken straight out of the man page and made a bit more readable
       --output echo \
       --args '{item.title}'
 #+end_src
+* ffmpeg
+this is the hardest bit, honestly. once i figure out how to build the video file from the pieces, gathering the pieces and upping them to youtube etc will be cake.
+
+i already know that to build the spectrometer is out of the scope of what i can build in one evening, but i am sure i can put together the ffmpeg command to build from a single image file and a single audio file
+
+#+begin_src shell :tangle video-builder
+  #!/bin/bash
+  ffmpeg -loop 1 -i ../media-assets/sample_pic.png \
+         -i /tmp/output.mp3 \
+         -shortest \
+         -c:v libx264 \
+         -c:a copy \
+         output.mp4
+#+end_src