X-ray showing broken bone
This blog post is written using Dragon Dictate voice recognition software for Mac. On Sunday I broke my right arm just below the shoulder. Although I have insurance, it made more sense to try dictation software to see if I could continue working.
I’m sure with practice get faster, but it goes at this speed the whole time, I’m going to be unable to be productive. For example that last sentence I dictated with only one mistake–the software thought I said reductive instead of productive.
‘armless fun
So how did I break my arm, you ask. Well, I was off road motorcycling when I came across a log lying at 45° across the path. What I should have done was stopped all ridden round it, but instead I tried to ride straight over it.
As any child will know from cycling, to bump up the kerb you need to hit it straight on. Strike the kerb at 45°, and you eat gravel. Unfortunately, before I got a taste of the gravel I had landed on my harm and, despite full body armour, I broke my arm just below the shoulder.
“lissen vewy curfully, I shull see this only wunce”
The following paragraph will be left uncorrected, so any errors introduced by the DragonDictate voice recognition software failing to correctly hear what I said or interpret the words and grammar, will be visible. I also intend to speak as a fairly standard dictations pace rather than wait for the dictation software to catch up. I have no idea whether it can keep up with me or whether I need to slow down in order to allow it time to interpret what I said and make adequate suggestions.
That took more than a minute in fact a minute and 17 seconds to complete the paragraph after I had finished speaking. It appears to have have only made one mistake, though.
It looks like I ought to get on with writing a feature using this new software. Let’s hope a break in my arm doesn’t mean a break in my income.
