Author: Stephanie Booth

Misrecognitions: the Joys of Speech Recognition [en]

If keyboards tend to produce typos, speech recognition introduces one to the world of misrecognitions. As they are not misspelt words, they tend to escape the eye, often producing comical or embarrassing results.

Je parle à  mon ordinateur… [en]

Depuis hier après-midi, je parle à  mon ordinateur. Le programme que j’ai acheté, Dragon NaturallySpeaking, marche plutôt bien. La preuve, je suis en train de dicter ce texte.

Je trouve épuisant d’apprendre à  parler à  mon ordinateur. Il ne s’agit pas simplement d’apprendre de nouvelles commandes. C’est un mode d’intéraction tout à  fait différent, qui mobilise certainement une autre partie de mon cerveau. Le rapport que l’on a avec son ordinateur au travers de la souris est kinésthesique. La souris et le clavier mettent en jeux une mémoire du mouvement, même si ce mouvement, en ce qui concerne la souris, a lieu en partie à  l’intérieur de l’écran, dans un espace virtuel. Lorsque l’on commande son ordinateur par la voix, par contre, ce sont les compétences linguistiques qui se mettent en marche.

Je suis toute maladroite avec ma machine. Déplacer la souris prend des siècles. Je prononce une commande, et des choses inattendues se passent. Je me dis que les personnes qui commencent à  utiliser un ordinateur doivent ressentir quelque chose de similaire. Du coup, j’ai beaucoup moins envie d’utiliser mon ordinateur. Je n’y suis plus comme un poisson dans l’eau. Un peu comme ce week-end, lorsque j’ai essayé pour la première fois des rollers inline —que je n’étais pas aussi à  l’aise que sur des skis

Dicter et taper sont aussi deux choses assez différentes. Merleau-Ponty a parlé de « penser en peinture », ou de « penser en écriture ». Ce n’est pas la même chose de penser en écriture ou de penser en mots prononcés. Est-ce que mon style d’écriture va changer ? J’ai tellement l’habitude de voir les mots passer directement de mon cerveau à  l’écran, comme ça, sans effort. Ça fait bizarre de parler. Dolores, tu vas être contente : maintenant j’ai des guillemets français et des espaces avant mes points d’interrogation !

Bon, je vois que je commence à  tartiner. Les hyperliens et les détails sur la reconnaissance vocale, ça sera pour la prochaine fois.

J’ai malheureusement perdu tous mes contacts ICQ. Envoyez-moi un petit message pour que je puisse vous rajouter, si jamais !

Nouvel article traduit [en]

Pompage.net vous offre ce mois un nouvel article, qui vous invite à  voir que l’indulgence des navigateurs peut être contre-productive. Elle n’encourage pas les designers web en herbe à  construire des pages structurellement correctes.

Si vous l’avez raté, n’oubliez pas de lire l’article du mois passé: Techniques et astuces pratiques pour une mise en page CSS. Mettez-vous également l’eau à  la bouche en regardant ce que nous vous préparons… Merci à  toute l’équipe!

Opposed to the War on Terror [en]

We won’t deny our consciences

Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of repression. [more]

The Guardian, June 14, 2002

This statement was signed by prominent americans and published in June. 4000 more signatures have been added since then. It’s worth reading.

This was cited in a swiss newspaper that I read yesterday, which explains why I’m noting it now, so long after it was published.

Entre gris clair et gris foncé… [en]

…il n’y a parfois même pas un poil.

Illusion d’optique: un carré clair de l’échiquer dans l’ombre est du même gris qu’un carré foncé hors de celle-ci. Flippant, non?

[Vu sur garoo.net.]

Voice Recognition [en]

Here is a very interesting talk on controlling computers by speech using voice recognition software.

This is certainly the way I’ll be heading if my wrists don’t get better very soon (I’m seeing the doctor on Tuesday). By the way, this accounts for part of my silence — he other part is to blame on my exams (yes, the first one went well, thank you!)

Weblog en français [fr]

Si le débat terminologique (la guéguerre des clochers) entourant le terme approprié à employer en français pour parler d’un weblog vous intéresse, j’ai rassemblé les liens disponibles à ce sujet dans WeblogEnFrancais, sur le wiki. Ajoutez les vôtres s’ils m’ont échappé!

Games People Play: Alcoholic/Addict [en]

Alcoholism can be analyzed through social games theory, which leads to the interesting realization that most support groups (like AA) encourage alcoholics to play another role in the game (Rescuer instead of Victim), and don’t actually help the alcoholic to pull out of the game and learn to relate to people differently.

If you have never heard of Eric Berne or his best-selling Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships I strongly encourage you to lay your hands on this book, or at least scoot off to this site, which briefly presents some important social games.

Games are played to varying degrees, and with consequences of varying severity (from benign to lethal):

  1. A First-Degree Game is one which is socially acceptable in the agent’s circle.
  2. A Second-Degree Game is one from which no permanent irremediable damage arises, but which the players would rather conceal from the public.
  3. A Third-Degree Game is one which is played for keeps, and which ends in the surgery, the courtroom or the morgue.

Coming back to the game of ‘Alcoholic’, here is the complete quote concerning the role of support groups in continuing to play the game:

There are a variety of organizations involved in ‘Alcoholic’, some of them national or even international in scope, others local. Many of them publish rules for the game. Nearly all of them explain how to play the role of Alcoholic: take a drink before breakfast, spend money allotted for other purposes, etc. They also explain the function of the Rescuer. Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, continues playing the actual game but concentrates on inducing the Alcoholic to take the role of Rescuer. Former Alcoholics are preferred because they know how the game goes, and hence are better qualified to play the supporting role than people who have never played before. Cases have been reported of a chapter of A.A. running out of Alcoholics to work on; whereupon the members resumed drinking, since there was no other way to continue the game in the absence of people to rescue.

There are also organizations devoted to improving the lot of the other players. Some put pressure on the spouses to shift their roles from Persecutor to Rescuer. The one which seems the closest to the theoretical ideal of treatment deals with teen-age offspring of alcoholics; these young people are encouraged to break away from the game itself, rather than merely shift roles.

The psychological cure of an alcoholic also lies in getting him to stop playing the game altogether, rather than simply change from one role to another. In some cases this is feasible, although it is a difficult task to find something else as interesting to the Alcoholic as continuing his game. Since he is classicly afraid of intimacy, the substitute may have to be another game rather than a game-free relationship. Often so-called cured alcoholics are not very stimulating company socially, and possibly they feel a lack of excitement in their lives and are continually tempted to get back to their old ways. The criterion of ‘game cure’ is that the former Alcoholic should be able to drink socially without putting himself in jeopardy. The usual ‘total abstinence’ cure will not satisfy the game analyst.

Both quotes: Eric Berne, Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships