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

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.

The Long Answer

A comment on a social network site set me thinking. My response threatened, as so often, to turn into an essay so I hurriedly edited it down to a short answer and popped over here to inflict the long answer on my long-suffering readership. Ok, this is only my third post so you’re not literally ‘long-suffering’ (unless you know me personally) but stick around kids... ;-) Here goes:

“...I do not believe this govt can last much longer. They do not have a mandate to do all they are doing. At some point surely the majority of the Lib Dems will have to break away?...”

Oh I do most sincerely hope so! But, from what I see, the LibDems (the Parliamentary bit of the Party) seem to have wedged into their heads the idea that they DO have a mandate because "the country wanted more consensus politics" and that a coalition is exactly what we wanted because we didn't give either main party a clear majority. I don’t remember having the option to vote for “a coalition”, let alone define which parties would form one.

I must have missed the mass public meetings where we-the-voters all got together and worked out how to vote tactically across, what, 650 plus constituencies to ensure that there was no clear majority in the House of Commons. It could have been a secret meeting to which I was not invited :-( So, in spite of the chunterings* of pundits, when I placed my vote it was for the person and party wanted and I fondly hoped that most of the rest of the UK would vote the way I did. (Not for the same person, of course; that way lies dictatorship...)  

They don’t seem to have given any thought to the fact that perhaps there was an even more secret meeting of the electorate at which it was decided that a minority Conservative Government was just the ticket. Properly strong opposition leading to consensus, perhaps? Thus by entering into a coalition they’ve actually upset everyone.           

I think that what a lot of us meant by ‘consensus politics’ was more along the lines of having almost everything decided by free votes rather than under one, two or three line whips. Maybe, say, spending longer debating issues in order to come to a greater understanding and consensus. It would slow down the pace of legislative change but that would not necessarily be a bad thing. Add in ‘all Public Consultations to be widely and fully publicised and then opened for an absolute minimum of thirteen weeks’ so that the we-the-public felt that we were a part of the debate more often than once in a blue moon! Look them up, blue moons, they’re more frequent than you might think... Certainly more frequent than general elections.

Some LibDems probably still fondly imagine that they're preventing, or can prevent, “the worst excesses” of “pure Tory policies”. Most must surely know that if they cause a fresh General Election they'll (a) lose their seats or (b) retain them but lose the trust of the Conservatives and have to work pretty damned hard to regain much trust from Labour.

So, it’s too early to bail out yet. ‘Have to give things a fair chance’. ‘It’s early days yet’. ‘We’re working hard to push our agenda through’. Et cetera. That’ll probably prevail for another fifteen months. Then they can start having ‘some cause for concern’ about ‘the direction our coalition partners are moving in’ before changing it to ‘stance . . . are taking’ later in that year. Before we know it, there’ll be less than two years before the Fixed Term is up and moving to an early election would involve votes of no confidence and untold/unspoken threats to the ‘green shoots of economic recovery’ so better to ‘see it through’ and hope.

Of course, two and a half years from now there might just really be some green shoots for some sectors of the economy and/or the population. By three-and-a-half years into this Parliament an economic boom/bubble might have got underway by some miracle or sleight of hand - again, for some business sectors and selected parts of the population. And they’ll be on such a high that they wo’n’t notice the people who got left behind and will happily vote the Conservatives back in as long as the election happens before the bubble bursts. (Loadsamoney, anyone?)

The LibDems? Ah, well. They were very much the junior partners in the coalition, weren’t they? No real major policies. Bit of tinkering around the edges. Some of it was quite good. Some of them are all right, the ones who didn’t defect. Or implode. Or get erased when the boundaries were redrawn. Or get kicked ‘upstairs’**.

If, though, we’re still in recession/stagflation/depression then, barring a sea-change/coup in the LibDem Party as a whole, they’ve probably had it anyway.

So, unless Cameron, Osborne et al., Inc., steam-roll something though that shocks the Parliamentary Liberal Democrats to their very cores (and I find it hard to imagine quite what that might be) I’m sorry to say that I think we’re stuck for the next four-and-a-quarter years. Not what I’d wish for. Not what I voted for. But my preferred candidate came second. And my party came second but ended up third... Hope they’re ready for next time!

* * * * * * * *

* this can’t be the correct word but it’s the one my brain instructed my fingers to type and I can’t think for the life of me what word it was I was hoping for***...

** or wherever you get kicked ‘up’ to when you’d decided that it was a good idea to rush things through so that a fully elected second chamber would take the place of the House of Lords at the 2015 election...

*** I am ‘enjoying’ some interesting side-effects from a medication which has recently been released into the wild (been approved for a new use). Combined with existing meds it’s, um, very interesting and sometimes highly amusing. To me. Some of the effects are on very short-term memory and co-ordination, such that what I intend is often not what comes out. ‘Neckst’ for ‘next’ is a particular favourite. Proof-reading and correcting this has taken a number of attempts interspersed with randomly falling (‘fawlign’!) asleep - or getting totally distracted - on top of my usual needing to rest, move around, re-groddle my joints etc., But, yay, I finished it!