Inaccessibility, Speech-to-text, Post-surgery 'fun' and Other Stories

Trey Harris's eloquent report on his recent surgery and the resultant need to use dictation software - in his case, mostly Dragon Dictate - should stand as a wake-up call to anyone who builds such software. Massive improvements are needed.

There are more and more people who need to be able to use reliable speech-to-text, speech-to-code and voice-control software; either because of temporary disability - post-surgery or injury - or because of permanent disabilities. We need it to live 21st Century lives, whether that be social interaction on the internet, preparing books or letters or posters or whatever for hobbies, or, indeed, in our working lives. There is a massive market there and absolutely anybody could need this tomorrow, either short- or long-term.

And there is a massive, mostly untapped, potential market amongst all the people who would love to be able to say, "Computer: print me a copy of the letter to Phipps & Co. and put dinner with Jo and her lot in my diary for next Friday and open G+ for me please. New post. Take dictation..." - and have it all happen. Smoothly. There's a Mac Concept film: Apple's 1987 Knowledge Navigator Video, on the theme of future-computer, where the guy and his computer converse in natural speech. It might have inspired, or been inspired by, Heinlein and/or Arthur C. Clark. Trey Harris found it for me after I’d tried and failed. But that future should be now or hereabout!

Honestly? Full accessibility should be baked-in to every OS - and every browser! - by now, damn it! After all, just as with wide access gates at stations, automatic or button-operated doors at shops, libraries, hospitals, etc., ramps and level entries on buildings, everybody would use it – even when they're not burdened with prams, buggies, or both hands full!

And, Googlers and Blogger Team, that goes for visual accessibility on every web-page (or site) too. It's not enough to say, oh you can set preferred or minimum text sizes and page-contrast in your browser or system-preferences-pane. Not while every web-site uses a different font-size to start with so you often end up having to over-ride your over-ride. A small control panel with three sizes of 'A's and two or three contrast settings, tucked into the settings cog in the black bar - and repeated in the sign-up process - then remembered as your personal site settings - would do it. Please?

P.S. I typed this, rather than dictating it. My speech has reached the slurr-y stage, editing-in punctuation is a drag and, right now, my typing is less slurr-y ;-)

P.P.S. I originally wrote this as an introduction to a ‘share’ of Trey’s post but Rowan Thunder suggested I put it up as an individual post. I’m also posting it to my blog.

Links:

This is Trey’s original post, which I’d ask you to read - there are some good hints and tips in the comments on it, too!
https://plus.google.com/u/0/116222833568410151476/posts/Npm9MeBhKKg

This is the link to Apple’s ‘Knowledge Navigator’ video:
http://youtu.be/HGYFEI6uLy0

This is the link to this article on Google+. If you read it there, you'll notice some minor differences:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/110866754584285378195/posts/TfXixypfUNq

 

Note:

Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov are twentieth-century ‘hard’ Science Fiction writers, all of whom included ‘aware’ computers in at least some of their novels. You can find out more about them here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Clarke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov

Free Concert for Petition Signature or vice versa...

ONE International is a grassroots advocacy and campaigning organization that fights extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa, by raising public awareness and pressuring political leaders to support smart and effective policies and programs that are saving lives, helping to put kids in school and improving futures. Cofounded by Bono and other campaigners, ONE is nonpartisan and works closely with African activists and policy makers.

Their current campaign is this Petition, calling on World Leaders to urgently provide the full funding that the UN has identified as necessary to help people in the Horn of Africa and to keep their promises to deliver the long term solutions which could prevent crises like this happening again.

So far, ONE has achieved 96% of the goal of 160,000 signatures. I've added mine. Please will you add yours.

Thank you.

And as a further thank you, I'd like to invite you to watch +Daria Musk's Hangout Concert 3 on Saturday night. Daria is a great supporter of ONE International as well as a fine singer/songwriter, given to singing as long as a) there are people to listen and b) her voice holds out - the last Hangout Concert lasted Seven-and-a-half hours... So signing the ONE Petition is also a way to pay forward for getting a free concert ;-)

You'll be able to see this one via embedded youtube.live players either here on G+ or on shh... the 'f'word... or on youtube itself or at hangoutparty.com. You'll be able to share the player and/or the links on your own pages or blogs or sites so as to invite your friends along. And, if you're on G+, you could even get into Daria's own Hangout and chat with her between songs!

I'll post full links on Saturday in the run up to the concert and during it. 

Lets enjoy some live music together and tip this Petition over it's target. They're only 4% away from it...


http://act.one.org/sign/horn_of_africa/


*edited because I accidentally published before I'd put the title or the links in... Need... more... sleep ;-)

Michael 'Würzel' Burston. R.I.P.

I've just heard about the death of an old friend.

 Würzel (Michael Burston) was truly a gentleman, a gentle man, open, warm-hearted, generous, so easy to be around. He was a consummate musician, he was encouraging towards and supportive of other musicians; a confidence-giver, someone who gladly shared his talent and skills.

Würzel was equally at home in light-hearted banter and in deep conversation. He listened as well as speaking. He remembered people. Years could pass, then we'd bump into each other and just pick-up from where we were. He and his beautiful partner Jem welcomed all sorts of people into their home and made us feel easy in their warm company.

I feel for her today.

The hole that he leaves in so many people's hearts will be enormous. His legacy, huge.

Mick, Michael, Würzel. Whoever you were to people - we LOVED you, man.

Ponies for All

“Ponies for all” could lead to a large-ish slump in forecourt petrol sales with knock-on effects on the oil industry but hay and stabling costs are pretty high. Current pony purchase prices range from second-hand-old-banger to mid-priced new family car, with a few in the super-car range, so the pony-sales economy would certainly enjoy a temporary stimulus. However, the vast majority of the ponies would have to come from overseas as there are only about 1.75 million horses and ponies in the UK and a large number of those are below working age. There are also costs to muck storage and disposal, 'though there should be an increase in the availability of manure-based composts and fertilisers.

Mind you, there would be an added stimulus in the cartwright, harness, vetinary and insurance industries. And riding schools, riding- and driving-instructors should see an upturn in business. In the short term, there would be an additional rise in ‘green jobs’ as bridleways and green-lanes are returned to service although introducing ‘pony-lanes’ to the roads might be a slight problem.

All in all, it should be a positive policy for the environment and the economy and I hope that a future Government will have the foresight to introduce this radical platform of measures.

Anyone who wants magic fairies can have them anyway: just close your eyes and say, “I believe in fairies, I believe in fairies,” etc.,

 Originally written and posted, by me, as a reply to comments on this blog at Liberal Conspiracy

P.S. 

I forgot to add in farriery as a trade that would see an upturn in business. They look after barefoot ponies as well as shod ones. 

I also forgot to mention that during the Second World War there was something of a renaissance in the use of horses and ponies for riding and driving - people keep comparing current economic conditions to those of WWII, so why not encourage a similar response now? ;)

Oh! And you might need to clap for the magic fairies thing to work...

xJ

Waxing Lyrical

I’ve been slightly-off-world lately, in great part thanks to the interesting side-effects of the counter-intuitively trade-named Lyrica which continue to steal my words and give me other ones instead.

Par example:

The other day I was sitting in the sunny patch on my doorstep* directing S as to how exactly I wanted the gardening chores done when, while sipping my tea, a clever, space-saving thought struck.

"S," I said, "is there anywhere on the wall to hang my rain-barrows?"

"Your... what?" came the reply, quizzically.

"My rain-barrows. If they were hung on the wall it'd save space and clutter."

"I don't get it. What are they, again?"

"Rain Barrows!" I enunciated clearly, although at this point I was beginning to doubt that I was using the correct term and wonder what on earth might be another word for them.

"Rain-barrows?" I repeated, somewhat hesitantly, pointing at one of the rain-barrows which was perched six feet away from me on top of some empty plant-pots. "Barrows," I said, while thinking it isn't a barrow it's something, um, "for carrying rain," not rain, that doesn't come out of taps, "to spread on the..." Damn - that’s not right... My voice faltered away.

"Watering-can?" S suggested, gently, while stifling mirth...

I could only nod. And blush. And start to giggle.

I prefer ‘rain-barrow’ now. It's a much better name for the object, since I often find mine filled up with a few days'-worth of free liquid from the sky and imagine that others do. Mine would be filled by the down-pipe in the guttering sometimes if it weren't for the slight obstacle of all the drain-pipes from the flat roof of this block of flats (and the balconies) being built inside the walls and linked directly to the main drain. 

Waste of rain! Plus, ultimately, it is rain that comes out of the taps. And barrows surely don't have to have wheels...

* Don’t be daft - I was sat upon a chair. I’m not quite limber enough, these days, to sit on the step. Well, just not and get up again...

Yell...............................................ow!

An Open Letter To My Friend And To All Whom It May Concern

(Pursuant to my visit to your blog as per your request to tell you what you'd written. More accurately, to tell you whether what you'd written had appeared where you expected it.)

I thought, since I was visiting your blog, that I'd have a read of the butternut squash one 'again'. I'm sure I'd read it before. So: "Hurrah!", I thought. "This was good - I'll read it again!" 

But (and this is where I became distraught, teary and all quivery in the lower lip department) IT. IS. IN. YEL... No! I can't type it :-( 

My least favourite colour except when, in nature, it is the approved colour for members of the narcissus family, buttercups (golden, in truth) and mustard. But as a type-face colour* it is painful, confusing, impossible and just plain wrong! 

I cannot read it. It zings through my eyes, ricochets down the optic nerve, reverberating and rebounding and amplifying as it goes, heading for my brain, creating havoc as it goes into a feedback loop and deafens my letter- and word- identification system. There's a proper word for that and it involves neurons and, for all I know when faced with yel (EEK!) typefaces, neutron bombs being lobed [sic] in all directions. And the only message I get from the page I'm looking at is, "Run away! Flee! Fire! Foe!"

I run. Slam closed the book. Hit "Command, Double-U" reflexively. Turn swiftly away from the advertising hoarding. Anything but look at the colour which hurts us, precious, it burns... 

So:

PLEASE change the colour! Pink is fine. Electric Blue, ditto. Flourescent Green, even. All against a white background, naturally, Because I want to read your words, your thoughts, your rants, your outpourings, your witterings. Truly.

But please, do not confront me with anything ye**ow.

Unless it's a banana.

xxx J

*Let alone walls, carpets, furniture... indeed ANYTHING which is not a flower or a fruit or a wasp or an hornet. And NEVER the colour of oilseed-rape. Shudder.


Edit of comments at 1.05am Friday: I've taken down two comments - one from my friend Severin who has, to my great relief, kindly changed the type-face colour of his blog which is rather x-rated far  more often than not...  The second was my reply to his comment which is out of context once Severin's comment is gone. If you are adult and determined to press on and find his 'prattlings' then I've given you enough clues ;-)
sJ

Suffering from Irritable Duncan Smith-itis or why my doctor is a liar

A Guest/Cross Post from my friend The Purple Fairy

"Apparently I am a fraud!  Hey!  How exciting, now I am labelled as something other than average or invisible!  Not that I have been officially told I am a fraud.  No, that would be to allocate a humanity to me that the Tribunal were incapable of expressing.  It seems that not only am I unimportant enough not to benefit from assistance but they have written to tell my friend this is the case BUT NOT ME!  How hard must it have been for her to have had to tell me over the 'phone? 

So, there you go - you know those headlines that tell you your taxes are being wasted on wastrels; the ne-er do wells, the scroungers, those citizens that can't be arsed to get off their fat backsides and do a day's work? Those who are profligate with their reproduction resources and leech as permanent parasites from the State?  Well according to three honest, upright citizens, I AM ONE OF THEM!   

But!  Wait!  Not only that!  I am also a benefit cheat!  Under the rather wonderful Welfare to Work programme (thanks to the last government) I was encouraged to seek Employment Support Allowance.  Only problem with that was that it was intended for individuals who did not have a job.  I did.  Not only did I have a job but I benefited from generous terms and conditions that saw me through the first part of my illness.  As I went into the zero pay stage under my sick note (oh! sorry that's out of fashion now - they are no longer sick notes but fit notes) I was required to be screened by the wonderfully named Atos on behalf of the DWP, then referred to TNG (for some reason I want to call them TCP) another organisation employed by the DWP to assess me for any training needs I may have to encourage me back into work.  To overcome my illness(es) and continue to contribute to the State.

The training I needed to get back to a job I already had was a diagnosis of one condition and the management of the excruciating pain of another condition to enable me to function nearly normally for a few hours a day.

Injunctions galore signposted the route back into work.  I must do this:  I must comply with that;  I must co-operate with any and all who asked me;  I must share my most intimate secrets with any 18 year old  spotty Kevin or Kevinette who I was directed to.  Failure to meet any such directions would result in hanging, drawing and quartering.  Oh alright then!  I exaggerate - a bit.  Any failure to follow instructions you could not understand would result in benefit being withdrawn.  To complicate matters further, if your ESA is granted on the basis of contributions paid via the National Insurance Tax you are  precluded from seeking financial assistance with things like poll tax.  If, however, it is granted on the grounds of income, then your poll tax is paid in full!!!   So an income 50 pence higher that the minimum set for a person to live on per day trumps four and a half decades of paying contributions.  A calculation process even the most greedy of bankers would have envied. 

I am sure there are people in this Country who are managing to defraud the system; who know the right words to say, who know how to complete the relevant 46 page forms accurately.  People who can adjust their bodies into the rigid boxes that have to be ticked by a faceless policy wonk who has no idea who or what you are.  I almost admire them!  They must be bloody clever to get around the system!  Perhaps it is a skill that could be added to the curriculum so that erstwhile students can add it to their cannon of qualifications.  I, clearly, have failed. Because I was daft enough to believe that TNG were acting in loco DWP and who shared my day to day information with them, and, because I was silly enough to report two weeks early aproposed adjustment to employment mutually agreed between me and my employer prior to it's formal implementation, I am now marked as a cheat for receiving £282.00 too much money.  Oh and TNG still owe me the £50.00 shopping voucher they promised me for being a good girl and returning to work.

Having striven through the first age and the second age to make a decent life for me and my family, paying all my dues, obeying all the rules, I find myself progressing through to the third age discounted as a human being; called a liar, labelled a cheat and unworthy of help from all the State.    If I was the only one then I could easily mange the rage I feel because after all, if you are called worthless long enough, you do believe it and there is no need to trouble with how others perceive you.  But I am only one.  There is a large, silently suffering population hidden away under the skirts of Mother England. 

Mr Irritable Duncan Smith is quite right!  The feckless and the foolish should be discouraged from milking the state.  However the tools to be used for such a process need to be much finer than the blunt boxing of people into shapes that do not fit them.  The decision process sidelines the GP's report (the one prepared for me clearly detailed my difficulties and my needs so she too must be a liar) the focus isn't even on any additional consultants' reports (ditto previous comment), it is on the ticked boxes, on strict narrow parameters.  Step outside the line by a toe and you are automatically discounted as a cheat and a liar.

Am I vexed!  Am I filled with rage!  Too bloody right I am! Me and half a dozen people involved in my care have been called liars, but worse, thousands more are deprived or dissuaded from seeking help because the authorities cannot manage the handful of thieves who do plunder the system.  Once more the tail wags the dog. I wonder if any of the people who sit on these appeal tribunals ever trouble to reflect and research on their decisions.  Of course not. That would credit them with an empathy they clearly do not possess.

Love and Peace

THE Purple Fairy xxx"

Originally posted here

Blame And Recrimination

Blame And Recrimination

(A Protest Song in a Reggae Style, inspired by Life, Aswad,  Benefits, Disabilities, Prejudice - and a new typeface called Syncopate, which doesn't copy over!)

*One-a, Two-a, Three-a*

(Nothing but) blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

No, nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

They say no, no, we don’t wanna see you shirK

So pick up your broken body, take it to work

Nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

No, nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

They say, you ain’t sick cause I seen you online

And that is the proof that you’re perfectly fine

They say no, no, we don’t wanna see you shirK

So pick up your broken body, take it to work

Nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

No, nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

They say, I saw you went out on the town

Gonna report you so the judge sends you down

They say, you ain’t sick ‘cause I seen you online

and that is the proof that you’re perfectly fine

They say no, no, we don’t wanna see you shirK

So pick up your broken body, take it to work

Nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

No, nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

But they don’t see how we crawl up the stair

The hour it took just to comb out our hair

How we don’t eat if there’s no-one to cook

The struggle to turn over the page of a book

That we need both hands just to pick up a glass

Have to ask for help to clean our own

Aah-ah-ah-aah,

Apparently the government gives us all a free car,

And electric wheelchairs and loads of money

The latest computer and a plasma TV

They send lots of people to do all our chores,

To cater every whim and to open doors

We take three holidays every year,

Expenses all paid, free wine and free running beer

And just to make sure that we never feel cold

They insulate our houses with 18carat gold! Hah!!!

Nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

No, nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

Nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

No, nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

Nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

No, nothing but blame and recrimination

On the disabled of our nation

Copyright (2011) vests in the writer here known as Rockhorse. The lyrics may be used for non-commercial purposes only but credit must always be given. For any other purpose, please request permission before use.