Monthly Archives: August 2012

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 – part 2

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“If you don’t listen to everything, you won’t understand anything.” When dictating, speak in statements, or at least phrases. Don’t stop randomly, for instance between “the” and noun.

I have now had the new version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking for a couple days. With my throat condition, that probably corresponds to a couple hours for those of you who talk a lot. I intend to use Dragon to dictate this entry, but I I will still need to make corrections. Perhaps you won’t, if you are a native English speaker without too much accent or dialect.

I am impressed by how quickly  Dragon has adapted to my voice.  It certainly happened much faster than with any earlier version. In all fairness, I also have more experience with Dragon now. For instance, as I mentioned in my previous entry,  I have made sure to perform training at different times of the day and at the beginning and end of a “speech”.

(I actually dictated the previous paragraph without making any corrections, but that’s not the rule for longer paragraphs yet.)

*** 

A problem with browsers: I haven’t heard about this from anyone else, but I have found Dragon to operate erratically in text entry fields in browsers. This could be a serious drawback, considering how much time we spend on the Internet these days, both at home and in the office. At first I thought the problem was only with Opera, which is my browser of choice. This program is not explicitly supported by Dragon, and in version 11 the text field where I write my journal was marked as unrecognized. While I could try to dictate there, the result was usually pretty bad. In version 12, Dragon alternates between “unknown text field” and “normal mode”. If I dictate while in normal mode, it seems to work well enough. If it is in unknown mode, I can usually just wait and it will switch to normal mode  after a few seconds. Even so, the hotkeys don’t work, and corrections  frequently mess up the text a little. So for longer texts,  I tend to use the DragonPad and just paste the result into the browser.

Unfortunately, I have similar problems in Internet Explorer when using Google+. Again, this may be a problem with that particular application – even typing can sometimes be sluggish in Google+ – but there are tens of millions of people who use that application frequently. Then again, it might be just me. Since I am one of the first to actually buy the product, there aren’t much in the way of reviews for me to compare with.

Is this a big deal? After a few days, you would probably not need to make corrections every time you post. A more serious problem might be if parts of the text are missing because you dictated while it was in “unknown field” mode. Again, this could be peculiar to my computer – there certainly doesn’t seem to be any problems in the demonstrations on YouTube. (Then again, they use neither Opera nor Google plus.)

***

 I haven’t had any problems with other programs. Dragon works beautifully with yWriter, the program I use when writing fiction. It seems to work fine with all kinds of notepads, whether plaintext or rich text. The commands for opening programs, switching between programs or clicking on buttons work as expected. And the on-screen help which came with version 11 makes it unnecessary to memorize the handbook with its dozens and dozens of commands. I am sure there are a number of features that I am never going to use, but better that than the other way around. And in version 12 you can even turn off features at a very detailed level if you’re afraid of activating them by mistake or if you simply need more speed.

You guys, I really feel like I can’t get across how smart this program is. When I first tried Dragon NaturallySpeaking approximately a decade ago, I compared it to a drunk and homesick high school exchange student. I compared version 11 to a native English speaker with a college education. But version 12… It is like a professional secretary with a genius IQ. Oh, it still has problems now and then, but it has only spent a couple hours with me, and there are several sounds in English that Scandinavians of my generation simply cannot pronounce. I am not sure any of my English-speaking readers would be able to understand me that well after listening to me for a couple hours.

Because I have spent decades mostly in silence, I cannot dictate a long entry like this without taking breaks. My voice simply dries up. If not for this physical handicap, I would be sorely tempted to do exactly what Nuance proposes in its slogan: “Stop typing, start talking.” It really is that impressive.

The Dragon has landed!

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Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 became ready for download today for us  existing Dragon users who had pre-ordered. I’ll come back to the installation shortly.

For those who do not know, Dragon NaturallySpeaking is a voice input program for the Windows computer, and the leader in this category. It takes dictation but also allows you to open programs, search the web, compose mail and edit existing texts without using your hands. As such, it solves an acute problem for those who don’t have hands or can’t use them. For us who have hands, it is most useful for dictation. It is fast and, with a little practice, amazingly accurate. The new version claims a 20% increase in accuracy, putting it well above 99% accuracy with 15 minutes of training. In practice, it takes longer, but the program keeps learning the more you use it. When you see an experienced user work with Dragon 11.5 (the previous version) it is “indistinguishable from magic”.

Installation:  The download link from Nuance arrived by email before I woke up in the morning. A separate mail also contained link to the training video. While I am personally a fan of reading, the training video will surely be welcome by dyslexic users, another core customer group. (The program can also read text out loud, even text you have not dictated.)

The download process proceeds in several steps. You first download a tiny download manager program. It does not really matter much where you save this, it is very small. This program must be run to start the main download. The main download is a compressed file, but still close to 3 gigabytes. This must again be unpacked to a larger set of files before the actual installation. During the unpacking process, both the compressed file and the unpacked file take up space simultaneously, and that’s before the actual install into the Program Files directory. This program is not recommended for people with small disks!

It is recommended that you back up the compressed file so that you can install from this if your computer suddenly crashes or if you simply decide to buy a new at some point.

The download went without glitches, but the install itself caused me some trouble. A ways into the installation, the program warned me that several processes had to be closed down before it could continue. Three of these were unknown to me, and did not appear with the given names in Windows Task Manager. I had to break off the installation and reboot the computer, then run the install again. The install did not automatically resume, and if I had not taken note of where the unpacked file was saved, I would have had to restart from the compressed file. I would recommend you reboot your PC before you start downloading, and not start any unnecessary programs until after the install is complete.

After installation, the software offers to let you register the product online. There is also an online activation which is necessary to continue using the program. The registration and the activation are unrelated tasks.

As a user of version 11, I had my existing program removed automatically and my user account upgraded to the new version. This takes some time even on a fast computer. New users will be led through creating an account instead, and the system checks the quality of your microphone input before asking you to read a text to attune the program to your voice and reading rhythm. You can skip this step and train the program by correcting mistakes if you want. New users also get an offer to let the program read through their email and documents to adapt to their vocabulary. This is a separate task from adapting to your voice. Again, you can skip this and just train the program through use, if you are impatient, but there will be more errors during your first few days of use if so.

Accuracy training: Since Dragon was complaining about my microphone, I bought another, an analog headset to replace the digital USB headset. I established a new user account and started over from scratch with the new hardware. This microphone passes Dragon’s test with flying colors, but the new account doesn’t have any of the accumulated experience with my speaking. Newsflash: It certainly wasn’t useful right out of the box!

My experience is probably not typical, since I am a foreigner to the English language and also have a chronic problem with my vocal cords – my voice grows “rusty” many times faster than a normal human – but I think we should still consider this. After all, most people aren’t native English speakers, or if they are, they have dialects or accents. And your voice does change with use even if more slowly than mine. And my experience is that it takes several hours for a new user before Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12 becomes truly useful. So don’t buy this program an hour before you need it. Set aside a couple days at least to become good friends with it before you start working together.

Not only does your voice change after you have used it for a while, but it is also slightly different from morning to evening. So it may be a good idea to do some reading training at different times, to help the computer get familiar with your voice. It is not necessary to read all the way through the exercises, you can click finish at any time. Also, try to make sure that you read the exercises in the same way that you speak to the computer when you dictate. For my part, I have found that I have a tendency to speak faster and in longer stretches when I read something, compared to when I dictate my own thoughts. For some reason I also tend to read louder – perhaps a habit from my school days? We used to be required to read aloud in class.

Features: The previous version mostly improved the user interface, introducing context-sensitive help in the form of the “Dragon Sidebar”. It also expanded support for more programs, and the engine was made more efficient. Version 12 has very few changes in the user interface; it supposedly includes 100 new features, but I don’t expect to need more than a few of them. Most of the development this time seems to have concentrated on the technical: In addition to the improved accuracy, the program also runs much faster, especially on new computers where it now takes advantage of multicore processors and extra memory. Additionally, even the home version can now take advantage of mobile phones as microphones: If you have an iPhone or an Android smartphone and it’s on the same Wi-Fi network as your computer, you can dictate to your smartphone and have the text appear on your computer screen!

One feature I thought was included in the home version, but which evidently isn’t, is playback of your own dictation. On the other hand, the program includes an excellent synthetic voice which can read what you have dictated (or any other normal text). This will begin to come in handy when the accuracy approaches 100%. Dragon doesn’t make typos; when it makes a mistake, it writes valid words, usually words that make sense  next to each other, but not the words you intended to say. We who have been typing for decades, will naturally look for typos when we proofread our text. It is all too easy for us to overlook that a wrong word has been used, such as “is” instead of “isn’t”. But chances are we catch it when we hear it out loud!

That’s all for this time, but I hope to be back with glowing praise when the accuracy approaches 100%. ^_^

 

Go (igo) on Android

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One of these two players is an idiot at playing Go. And it is not the tablet. -_-;

It has been a long time since last I wrote about the Oriental board game of Go. The game is deceptively simple. It takes two minutes to learn and a lifetime to master. Since more and more of those lifetimes are spent on the move, it makes sense to have the game available on your mobile phone or tablet. With the Android operating system becoming more and more widespread, several high-quality Go programs have become available for it.

There are basically three types of Go program for Android. One type lets two players use the same mobile phone or tablet to play the game against each other. Basically the device is used as a Go board (Goban in Japanese). Since I don’t know any local players, I have not downloaded this type of program.

The second type lets you play against your cell phone or tablet. These processors are less powerful than desktop or laptop computers, so they will not provide a challenge to the experienced player. I am not an experienced player, so I downloaded one of these. It is called Godroid. This is probably a pun, there’s nothing godlike about this program. Well, not by today’s standards. I suppose it is indistinguishable from magic. But that’s business as usual for today’s telecommunication devices. Using it is simple: You tap on the board where you want to play your stone, and a shadow of the stone appears. Tap once more to confirm. The device will play next. The first time I started, it directly opened a training game rather than taking me to the New game dialog where you can set board size, handicap, black or white, strength, komi and scoring. This made me think initially that these options did not exist, but when I started a new game, they did.

The computer is a computer, obviously, so it will surely become predictable once you have played long enough. But with ten different levels of strength, this should take some time.

Godroid is just one of several programs, but it is free and has built-in artificial intelligence rather than running a separate program in the background as your opponent.

The ultimate challenge (for the time being at least) is another human player. Luckily this is also possible on your phone or tablet! Panda Tetsuki is a fast, clean and simple program to connect to the “PandaNet” IGS (International Go Server), which is what you would expect, a place where you can play Go against people from around the world, day and night. It also has limited chat / comment capabilities. You can connect as a guest right away, but if you have an account (as I have from my home computer), you can use that to log in as yourself. You need an account to participate in games, but you can watch games even as a guest. If you want to play, I recommend you first go into the menu and set “confirm moves”, so you don’t accidentally place your stone in the wrong place and ruin the game for yourself and your opponent.

The functionality is simple: Players who are online are sorted by strength. Your name is highlighted in blue. Players available for play are listed in black, unavailable in gray, and a symbol of a tiny Goban shows those who are playing a game. By clicking one of these you can watch their game. Click on the small arrow to the right (not very obvious!) to get the game board up and watch them play in real time! You can also wind the game backward and forward to catch up to what has happened before, use the phone’s menu button to get the option to jump to the start. I’d expected that to be in the action line with the back and forward keys, but I guess that would be a bit crowded?

There are less options than in the official client for the PC, but you can watch games, chat and look at statistics. And once you have an account, you can play against other registered players. As far as I know, it is still free to register. The ranking system on the IGS is based on your games, at least unless you are a verified pro, in which case you are marked as such. By consistently winning against players of higher rank, you will eventually move into that rank. Correspondingly if you consistently lose against a lower rank, you will fall into that rank. This assures that other players can easily choose you as a suitable opponent. It is possible to challenge someone of a distant rank. A higher player may play a teaching game. There is however no provision for a strong player to play against several weak players simultaneously, as far as I can see.

I apologize for not having more detail and for not having tested more programs. But since I have complained in the past about the lack of such programs, at least I can now eat my words. They are tasty. ^_^ By that I mean that I am glad to see there are now several good programs available for Android. Perhaps one day I will watch one of your games on the IGS?

***

This entry is actually closely related to the last few ones. Back when I read (and wrote) about deliberate practice, one of the things that occurred to me was the Oriental ancient board game of Go.

I know I have written about this a couple of times over the years, but there is a 75 episodes anime called “Hikaru no Go” about a boy learning this game and his deliberate practice to become one of the best players in the country. It is a very inspiring series, especially for those interesting in that particular game, but also more generally inspiring towards deliberate practice. The essential message is that you can learn both from loss and victory, but this requires that you always challenge yourself, that you always try something that is beyond what you should be capable of.

In other words, you should always seek out challenges where you have a small but nonzero chance of winning, and then seriously try to win. You should try so hard that there is a chance you might start crying if you lose. But whether you win or lose, you’re going to learn something. In fact, you are going to learn a lot if you practice that way. This is the fastest path to progress.

But thinking about this in my current life phase, I realized that there is nothing on Earth that I feel so passionately about, except possibly life itself. If I were to look at my life with those eyes, as a challenge which I have a small chance of not losing – the loss of this lifetime, this incarnation as Easterners would say, the loss of my soul as the Bible would put it – that would be the one thing that I would be sure to cry over. Thus my recent reflections on Gnosis (which, incidentally, is not related to Gnosticism except linguistically.)

But I cannot maintain such a high perspective for long, because I suck at being serious (except if I am sick and rapid getting sicker, at which time I tend to be super serious, imagine that! But that is not the case now, and I appreciate that.) So instead I have been watching this anime and downloading Go programs for Android.

Solitary confinement is Hell?

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Save me! I beg you! Save me!

A damned soul in Hell? Or someone in solitary confinement? The difference may be less than we believe. (Not recommended bedtime reading, I guess.)

I read something weird from Mouravieff again, and it made me think of a number of other things, as I tend to do. He wrote that people who are not born again die their second death 40 days after the first, at which point their astral bodies die as well. Even though that seems at odds with the religion he claims to represent (the Orthodox Church), I can totally see what he means. And yes, this bears directly on the torture of solitary confinement.

What struck me was the similarity to the 40 days and nights Moses spent on the mountain and Jesus spent in the wilderness, alone with God. What if I were alone with God – would I survive 40 days? Even without the fasting those two did, I am not entirely certain. I like to think so for my part, but I am not sure. I have never been anywhere near that situation. And I am extremely solitary for a human.

***

Dolphins, being even more social than humans, will simply stop breathing after a few hours without company by their own species or, failing that, humans. (Dolphins have evidently always been aware that we are sentient creatures, whereas we have found out only recently that they are not big fish.)

Humans are somewhat more resistant to death by loneliness, but solitary confinement is still considered “cruel and unusual” by all civilized countries. When I was young, I read as a fact that primitive tribes would condemn people to death by ignoring them. I am not sure whether that is actually possible without the tacit accept of the condemned. People are really good at making themselves noticeable. But the very fact that this idea has taken root shows how important it is for a human to be in contact with other humans.

Solitary confinement is an old, proven method to make people confess to crimes regardless of whether they have actually committed them. After a few weeks, the person has no idea what crimes he may have committed or really even who he is, apart from his name and some such basics. Memories dissolve, sleep and other biological functions become erratic, self-damaging behavior may occur.

Normal solitary confinement in contemporary prisons is not absolute: The prisoner is in some contact with guards and may have access to various forms of media. When solitary confinement is used as torture, the isolation is absolute and the victim not even allowed to read or write. Please bear in mind that human contact – in a similar way to money, actually – has value on a logarithmic scale: A small amount will keep you alive, while it takes much more to make you feel comfortable. So there is a big difference between hearing people talk to you and only hearing footsteps, for instance; or seeing other people versus just knowing that they can see you, but may or may not actually be doing so right now.

Total isolation tends to cause breakdown and outright madness, and it usually happens in a matter of weeks. Normal people will start showing abnormal behavior in as little as one week.

***

So if we first assume that an “astral body” or “ghost body” survives the physical death, as described by many survivors of heart stop, then it stands to reason that they would suffer tremendously if unable to return to the spirit world and commune with God, angels or saints. Drifting around ignored by everyone, they would be in the ultimate solitary confinement, forever unable to communicate with anyone. It stands to reason that their psyche would unravel over the course of 40 days, and if the astral body is some kind of construct of the mind, it would basically dissolve like a snail trying to cross the road on a sunny day. A hellish fate!

I don’t see any mention of such a fate in the holy scripture of the world’s great religions. I would not be surprised if most damned souls would prefer demons with pitchforks rather than roaming a deserted world until dissolving in utter madness, alone in the void. (Incidentally, no demons with pitchforks in the scriptures either. People have an amazing imagination.)

***

As you may expect, the thought has visited me: Could I spend 40 days alone with God even while alive? Never mind the fasting. I happen to have seven weeks or so of vacation on book… If I stocked up on dry food, paid my bills, turned off all telephones and computers and refrained from touching any paper, I could presumably do this experiment this fall. If I started on November 1 when I usually start NaNoWriMo, I would finish two days before my doctor appointment on December 12.

There is a tiny part of me that is fascinated by the thought. But it is quite tiny. Chances are I am going to spend my “solitary” month the same way as earlier years, alone but writing furiously and hanging out with my Sims. I don’t know about you, but I can definitely live a month without touching or smelling humans, as long as I can communicate with your minds. I think this already sets me apart from neurotypical humans, yes. But I don’t seriously consider me in the same league as Moses or Jesus. Although who knows what I would think after 40 days in solitary confinement. Perhaps I would discover that I was actually a god from outer space…

Or perhaps I would stop breathing, like the dolphins.

Reading weird books

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Esoteric books

Recently bought paper books, sorted in order of descending weirdness. (Most of my recently bought books are e-books, not easily photographed.)

I felt the urge to read Boris Mouravieff’s Gnosis again. It is a rather specific urge, like the book is wordlessly calling to me. So I’ve nibbled at it again. It is interesting as usual. Some things seem very likely to be true. Some seem out and out weird.

For instance, obvious truth: As ordinary people without esoteric practice, we are swept away by the currents of emotions and influences but are not aware of it, thinking instead that we are acting of our own free will. Once we have studied esoteric Truth, we begin to become able to notice when we are being swept away, but we are still not able to stop it. The “A influences” as he calls them, the influences of this world, are still far too strong for us. To attack them head on would be like attacking windmills. Windmills 1, idealist 0.

What people usually do when they begin to observe that they are rarely in control of their own mind and body? Lie. “Cheat until caught, then lie” as a friend used to have as his mail signature. Avoid the truth like the plague. As if it were the rotting corpse of an Ebola victim, ready to infect anyone who passes downwind of it. Construct a fake personality that is the captain of its own fate. I did it all on purpose! Unless it was illegal or hurt someone, then it was someone else’s fault.

To study this more closely, I have picked up a book recommended by Farnam Street (the blog of secular wisdom seeking mentioned in my previous entry). The book is The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty by Dan Ariely. It is about the observation that all normal people cheat a bit, but few dedicate their life to swindling. Therefore there must be a different mechanism behind the everyday cheating and lying that you and I do, different from the all-out sociopath swindlers who are bosses of Wall Street corporations.

I have begun reading it. It is borderline boring so far, but I need to know what I am doing to pull the wool over my inner eye. So I intend to persevere in reading it. Some day.

Deliberate practice for what?

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What comes before the step before the first step?

What comes before the step before the first step? Well, if the step before the first step is  firm intention, then the step before that would be awareness, I guess?

I have mentioned Bjørn Stærk in the past, one of the wisest men who knows my name. (Wisdom is a rare trait at the best of times, and there is little but fortunate coincidence or divine intervention that might cause a meeting between me and a wise person, in the physical world or the electronic world. I am not a Great Attractor pulling such people to me, at least not yet. ^_^)

Thanks to persistent retweets from Mr Stærk, I have become aware of Farnam Street, a blog of specialized wisdom seeking, in a totally secular setting as far as I have seen. (The same goes for Stærk himself. Also, unlike the other, he has gradually come to concentrate on writing for the Norwegians, who have their own language. My own language, used to be. Well, I wish him luck with that.)

Farnam Street recently had an entry called “What is deliberate practice?“, a timely reminder that practice does not make perfect unless it passes certain criteria. First of all, it must not be too easy. Repeating what can already be done without conscious effort will not give noticeable progress (although I would add that it can keep us from backsliding.) On the other hand, if it is alien enough that we just flounder and panic, we cannot actually practice. (We don’t learn from our errors if errors are all we do, only when they are exceptions.) I already knew these. But we also need immediate feedback. I did not know that! That makes it much harder. I notice this at work.

It is a good article and I recommend it. I may even buy the book. But I already have a backlog of books to read.

***

But if I know how to make progress, I still need to know what to make progress in and preferably also why. When you are a student, this question is easy. Your teachers tell you what you must study. Later on, you may be lucky and find a workplace which is similarly structured. But for most of us, life is pretty disorganized. The tasks we meet at work are either repetitive, or they are seemingly random so that we can’t prepare for them. The same applies to most things we meet at home.

The only obvious exception I can think of is learning a new language, and you probably didn’t even think of that if English is your mother tongue. Still, there is a number of us who either know people in other countries or want to go there, or simply have an interest in the culture of another nation. For instance, Japan is the “holy country” for many young people around the world. Learning even the basics of that language would certainly take deliberate practice!

But I’m 53 years old now, even though my hair is the only part of my body that has realized it yet. I have begun to see the impermanence of all things. When I think about the effort of deliberate practice, a quote springs to mind from one of the least popular books of the Bible, the rather cynical Ecclesiastes, here in Chapter 4, v 7-8.

Then I turned my attention to something else under the sun that is pointless: the situation in which a solitary individual without a companion, with neither son nor brother, keeps on working endlessly but never has enough wealth. “For whom” [he should ask], “am I working so hard and denying myself pleasure?” This too is truly pointless, a sorry business.

For whom or what am I making effort and denying myself slack? Well, I’m not, really. Not much at least. But given the requirements we just noted for deliberate practice, it certainly is – as the article repeatedly says – not fun.You have to suffer somewhat. (And if you practice the violin or trombone, so must your neighbors.) Why? What is worth doing all this?

There are Olympic games going on these days. Despite the name, it is not all fun and games for those who participate. They are almost without exception mutants with abilities others cannot achieve if they strive for them all their life. And even then, they have to discipline their body and keep it in slavery. And for what? Some money, a brief appearance in the news, and the knowledge that they have become the best or at least one of the best. And then they die. Well, we all do, and I guess it is better to die having accomplished something than nothing. Who knows.

But for me, even accomplishment seems hollow unless it too is for someone or something. As in the quote above, it may be for the benefit of a son or brother, that is to say, a family member. It could be for some greater cause, like the happiness or prosperity of a number of people, even people we don’t know.

I must admit, I am fascinated by people who set out to radically change themselves. I enjoy reading exercise blogs, weight loss blogs, exchange student blogs etc. Actually I would probably enjoy reading a weight gain blog as well: It is the intentional transformation of oneself that fascinates me.

But what I really wish I could read was a theosis blog – the ongoing story of a human becoming transformed into divine nature. Now that would be inspirational. Still, there are good reasons why this cannot be blogged about and only rarely even be subject of an autobiography. There is a “general law” as Mouravieff puts it, which will seek with great strength to stop anyone who tries to break out from their sleep. Calling attention to oneself while still in the process is like trying to break into a guarded house. The Conspiracy will come down on you like a ton of bricks, as they say in America. So I shall content myself to read about your efforts within this life.

How about you? Hopefully you have someone or something you want to work hard for. Even if it is just your livestock, I would not mind hearing about it.