MacSpeech Dictate: The Movie

Okay every word that you read here is what MacSpeech Dictate hears me say. I'm going to just give an example and talk about this product and then copy the results from word [Word] exactly as they peer [appear] and paste them to the blog.

The first thing you have to know is that every time you see punctuation that is actually me saying a command for the program to create the punctuation. So every time you see a. [period] That's me saying. [period] I can't figure out yet how to get it to type out the word.[period] That is one of the quirks.

Any time during the course of this entry you see a word or words in brackets that's me going back and entering the word it should've heard. So right away you see there are some small issues.

The MacSpeech Dictate program is a version of a PC based program I think called Dragon, I'm not sure. But all the reviews I've read for the PC version say it is somehow better than the Mac version. I can't speak for that, I can only tell you about this one. Oh and by the way when you see the punctuation mark that is, [comma] that's also me saying, [comma]. To get to a new paragraph I say "new paragraph". To get it to type "new parargraph", the words, I have to pause between the words new and paragraph.

Here's the thing. The best use, obviously, of this equipment is for people who are unable to use the keyboard for whatever reason, and there is a component to MacSpeech Dictate that allows that person to control their computer and use other programs. So for anyone compromised in any way to using their computer in the way we may be used to, this is an added boon. I have not delved into that part of this product, and it would be wrong of me to explain how that works, or if it works.

I long ago recognized that the way I write was somehow inadequate to the points I was trying to make. I found that typing dialogue out of the silence of the room and the noise in my head somehow translated a stilted version of a conversation onto the paper. You read that conversation later, and it doesn't sound real. Some of you may know my actual schooling, early career, and training was in public performance, and part of the lessons of public performance in tale [entail] improvisation. So it is not a foreign thing to me to be speaking aloud into a microphone to obtain an effect. It also helps if, like me, you are a total psychopath and don't care if anyone knows that you're talking to yourself in an empty room.

Therein lies, I think, the biggest stumbling block for a lot of people who might find some use for this application. And if you have no problem visualizing or hearing or sensing words in your mind and then transferring and translating them through your fingers onto a keyboard in silence or with the aid of music, but certainly not with the aid of your voice, then you basically have no need for this. But sometimes the ideas come too fast for you to express them through standard typing. I have also found that speaking the text into the microphone allows me the luxury of moving into that practice that is a dream for writers; namely, the need to get it down on paper before it flits away on you. I find I'm not bothered by the editing process when I'm telling the story. There's more on the paper to work with when I look at what I've said rather than what I've typed. Fleeting ideas don't escape this way. You just say them. And of course this doesn't produce a finished product. If you're a good writer, there's never a finished product anyway. So no issue there.

Because of my theater background this makes dialogue sparkle for me. I can catch a voice the way it really sounds, because the voice is really speaking. There is always editing going on regardless, so you may as well flood of [the] paper with ideas and thoughts now, because you're going to go back and edit it anyway. For some people the act of physically writing, if not impossible because of the [a] condition, is simply too slow. So the drawbacks -- like for example whenever you say a command that creates punctuation and you had a different meaning for the word it still gives you punctuation rather than the word -- are bothersome that [but] are easily overcome, really.

You can set up MacSpeech Dictate in 5 to 10 minutes. Once you install it you go through a process where you read a prepared text so that it can translate your speech pattern and begin to recognize the way you speak compared to the text it knows you are trying to say. There are further exercises like this so that it can learn more about how you speak. Presumably the more times you practice with it the better it gets at reading you.

You are reading the results of MacSpeech Dictate only having experienced one exercise with me. So after reading two paragraphs of prepared text so we can compare my voice to the words it sees it's really not doing too bad. For your information I am not looking at the screen as I say these words. So whatever it looks like is what it actually looks like.

Two issues. You do have to speak clearly. So I find that if I'm going to be drinking while doing this I have to speak slower. That's one thing. The other thing depends on the kind of writing you do. I use all the words in the English language in the stuff that I write for fiction. I use swears. Here's what happens when MacSpeech dictate hears swears...

Shift this thought. Shipped this talk.

Shift.

This.

Flock.

You see what I'm saying? Those were supposed to be three bodily functions that occur between your waste [waist] and duties [your knees]. It didn't get it. It's a Puritan.

So MacSpeech Dictate has manners, is naïve, and will not accommodate your inner Bukowski. But I'm giggling a little because I had to see if it got the name Bukowski, and by God it did. I'll be a son of a bitch. Oh wait -- it just got bitch information [exclamation] point!

It has a lot to learn if it's going to be a member of this family, but I wonder if I do the further exercises that help but [it] to know me better compared to prepared words its performance will be enhanced. Plus, again, I have to say that sometimes my own speech patterns and pronunciation probably don't help it. So this program and I should probably do the exercises once a week, or until we run out of them.

Anyway, I did promise a little review of the product. It's obviously not for everyone, but it is certainly a benefit to me. Sometimes I will write things out longhand, or I will have snippets of things collected on various pieces of paper, and transcribing them is difficult because though I am a fast two fingered typist, I am still a two fingered typist. After long bouts of transcribing I need a lot of alcohol to deal with the neck pain. So I found that what I can do is gather my stuff together, put on a headset and microphone, go to the place in the text I want to add the latest thing, walk back and forth as I rifle through my written notes, and string together a soft [thought] or image or story I want to convey. Yes it has a very long cord from headset to plug that allows you to do this. I am assuming because of this feature it was designed intelligently, as if someone understands that sometimes a person travels when they dictate.

So if nothing else you now know how I talk. Understanding that every bit of punctuation you saw is a word I said for.,!; and etc. and that I can't say the word.,!; kind of kisses [pisses] me off, but that might just be that it isn't as used to me as it should be, yet. I also did not edit this for grammar, which obviously would have to be done for [before] any formal submissions.

This is an expensive program. I've seen it sold for $199. I don't know if it's cheaper for the PC. But I do know if you look around you can get a deal. Mine was listed at $169, and they [I] found an online coupon that reduce [reduced] debt [it] by almost half. So I got a deal. But I do know that deal is [has] expired. I also know that most of you have PCs, but I have no idea what the Dragon engine -- I think it's called -- costs.

It sure is fun when you're drunk.

And if you want to create avant-garde poetry, and just let it write what it thinks you're saying, and have that be the creation, well you've got it made.

That might be allowing you to [too] much access into the way my addled brain works, but what the hell?

And by the way, that's over 1400 words spoken in less than fifteen minutes. That represents a real value in not letting anything escape. You can always cut back later. Anyway that's the ideal scene.