The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[FifeingEejit]

Dbeaver you useless crock of shite*, stop remembering a query that was useful to me in March, has since been haxlcked to shit  to deal with changing requirements in various other script windows and is now different enough that I stsrt babbling about now defunct requirements in meetings that would cause a problem for what that meeting is nominally about.

I might still reinstall oracle sql developer and iris studio, but having Dbeaver for the dbs I don't really want to be working with is quite handy.


* lies, it's useful for mumps, various other dbs with shit tooling and passable as an alternative to SSMS until you need to do Server cobfig and can't be arsed finding out the commands

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[andrewc]

The reality is also that it still produces a far less accurate result than transcription by human, although of course it's also far quicker and cheaper. And both processes still need human correction to produce something worth reading.

A further reality is that so much of it is not worth reading even when perfectly written, but that goes for so many activities.

We've now moved over to Microsoft Teams for both messaging & voice calls.   The last call I missed went to Voicemail & it gave me a fairly shonky transcription of what the caller had said in the alert message.

[Beardy]

And given that the company in question was a significant player in early speech to text/text to speech research and development its a sad inditement on UK industry's ability to convert innovation to developed products.

[andrewc]

Grumble 1:  First dental check in 2 years (Covid etc)  A filling needs repairing.  Not totally unexpected, but ouch needles & drills. 


Grumble 2: Parcelfarce.  Where's my new breadmaker ?  Returned to depot without even a card through my letterbox. 

[ian]

So a grown-up came to replace the fan element in my oven today. It seemed a simple task: undo some screws on a panel at the back of the oven, take out old element, install new element, replace panel. Job done.

Of course, there were two more screws to be undone to complete the task. Where were those, you might ask? It's a fitted oven and they were round the back, so he had to take out the entire oven for just those two screws.

Someone in Hell has an intern.

This meant he didn't have time to re-silicone my shower. Darn.

[Kim]

The reality is also that it still produces a far less accurate result than transcription by human, although of course it's also far quicker and cheaper. And both processes still need human correction to produce something worth reading.

Quite.  It's a great labour-saving tool for human correction, if only because it saves all that mucking about with the timing.

The problem is that if you show the average hearing person (especially those who appreciate how difficult it is for computers to decode speech, but aren't habitual users of subtitles) machine transcription in action, they tend to fixate on the 95% that it gets right, rather than the critical 5% that it doesn't.


Still, it's also given us search engines that can index audio and video, and speech based user interfaces (Siri et al) that are pretty usable.  I wonder what the next 20 years will bring.

[chrisbainbridge]

I am continually amazed at speech transcription.  I can dictate a 30 page report and produce a completely intelligible document.  There will be glitches.  I know for example that it occasionally (5%) transcribes "full stop" as "will stop". which means I do a global search and replace. 

My problem is that I cannot proof read something I have just dictated.  I need to leave at least 2 weeks before I can proof read it properly so my PA proof reads them and then sends them back to me.  We used to do this on paper but she now prefers to do it electronically with comments and track changes.  This alone has saved us about 100 sheets of paper a week which is great.

Compared to the original voice transcription of the early Dragon and Olympus?? it is a massive change.  There has not been an upgrade to Dragon for over 2 years that I can remember so it will be interesting to see what comes in the next versions.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yes. Not doing things on paper is amazing!

Quite.  It's a great labour-saving tool for human correction, if only because it saves all that mucking about with the timing.

Not so sure. I wasn't even thinking about on-screen captions, but the timing for those is, as I'm sure you're aware, not as simple as having the right words appear as they're spoken.

[MattH]

I find paper for reviewing (especially final reviews) very useful.
There's something about the change in medium - compared to viewing on screen - that makes errors jump out, even ones that you've read several times on screen before. It's also good to have a document laid out in full, with all pages visible. That can highlight formatting or flow issues.
Does get through a lot of paper though, so I do it less frequently now. For important submissions though it's worth the extra time and effort.

[Jasmine]

I am continually amazed at speech transcription.  I can dictate a 30 page report and produce a completely intelligible document.  There will be glitches.  I know for example that it occasionally (5%) transcribes "full stop" as "will stop". which means I do a global search and replace. 

Me too. I'm a real convert to dictation. Yes, I have to correct it, but I can do it immediately and it's faster overall than if I just type. The advantage is twofold. Firstly, I don't have a great sitting position to type longer documents, so I try to avoid at all costs for spine related reasons. Secondly, I think and talk way faster than I can type. I can do a stream of consciousness dictation and capture 90-95% of it, rather than forget what I was trying to say mid-sentence.

I'll admit to the following irritations:

Transcribing 'period' as '.' in the middle of a sentence. e.g. "In the current. The effect of this will be..."
Transcribing 'but' as 'that'. This one is really common, to the point where I'm over-pronouncing 'but'
Spelling mistakes. The system immediately underlines them as mistakes, so what's that about?

[chrisbainbridge]

I am continually amazed at speech transcription.  I can dictate a 30 page report and produce a completely intelligible document.  There will be glitches.  I know for example that it occasionally (5%) transcribes "full stop" as "will stop". which means I do a global search and replace. 

Me too. I'm a real convert to dictation. Yes, I have to correct it, but I can do it immediately and it's faster overall than if I just type. The advantage is twofold. Firstly, I don't have a great sitting position to type longer documents, so I try to avoid at all costs for spine related reasons. Secondly, I think and talk way faster than I can type. I can do a stream of consciousness dictation and capture 90-95% of it, rather than forget what I was trying to say mid-sentence.

I'll admit to the following irritations:

Transcribing 'period' as '.' in the middle of a sentence. e.g. "In the current. The effect of this will be..."
Transcribing 'but' as 'that'. This one is really common, to the point where I'm over-pronouncing 'but'
Spelling mistakes. The system immediately underlines them as mistakes, so what's that about?

Interesting that you get the but/that transcription error as well.  Very frequent with me.  The american Voice recognition forums do not seem to recognise it as aproblem

spelling mistakes are because of the 2 seperate vocabularies.  one in word and one in Dragon

[pumpkin]

To whoever borrowed my pump in the Cycle Hub. I appreciate you may have had tyre/tube issues and the hub pump doesnt work but if you use my Topeak Road Master and switch the pump head assembly around to Schraeder, kindly put it all back in the right order, not leaving the presta end jutting out and please reattach the pump to my bike in the way it was not the way you left it. I have now decided to remove the pump everyday in order to maintain its functionality.

[barakta]

I am continually amazed at speech transcription.  I can dictate a 30 page report and produce a completely intelligible document.

Witchcraft!

Then again, my hearing DSA assessor colleagues just use A Random Profile to demonstrate Dragon speech recognition to disabled students.

Dragon doesn't work for me even with training, suspect my speech is too inconsistent. I've been trying it on and off since 1998.

There has not been an upgrade to Dragon for over 2 years that I can remember so it will be interesting to see what comes in the next versions.

Dragon was bought out by Microsoft recently, so there may be moves to integrate it into Windows more seamlessly. They stopped developing Dragon for the Mac but someone has developed a specific package for those whom the built-in MacOS one isn't good enough called TalkType or something.

Have you come across Medincle? It's a programme which improves the recognition of medical words and indeed puts medical words into all the other spellcheckers on the system. Devised by a dyslexic doctor and pals and probably one of my favourite pieces of "DSA software".

[chrisbainbridge]

I am continually amazed at speech transcription.  I can dictate a 30 page report and produce a completely intelligible document.

Witchcraft!

Then again, my hearing DSA assessor colleagues just use A Random Profile to demonstrate Dragon speech recognition to disabled students.

Dragon doesn't work for me even with training, suspect my speech is too inconsistent. I've been trying it on and off since 1998.

There has not been an upgrade to Dragon for over 2 years that I can remember so it will be interesting to see what comes in the next versions.

Dragon was bought out by Microsoft recently, so there may be moves to integrate it into Windows more seamlessly. They stopped developing Dragon for the Mac but someone has developed a specific package for those whom the built-in MacOS one isn't good enough called TalkType or something.

Have you come across Medincle? It's a programme which improves the recognition of medical words and indeed puts medical words into all the other spellcheckers on the system. Devised by a dyslexic doctor and pals and probably one of my favourite pieces of "DSA software".

Yes dragon has real limitations just as much AI does.  I tried Dragon for Mac but it just was not good enough and the commands were just too different to allow me to use it easily.

My medical vocab is pretty limited and now fully built but I will certainly look at Medincle, thank you and talktype as well.
Chris

[barakta]

Yeah Dragon for Mac was never anywhere near as good as Proper Windows Flavoured Dragon. The development was always a lot less.

Dragon is often the most loved AND most hated piece of "assistive" software which I think is very interesting on many levels. I often ask students how much they use Siri or the Google assistanty thing as a guide to whether they're going to find Dragon useful or just a novelty.

[Mr Larrington]

Why, in spite of The Sheds being positively afloat on a sea of screws, do I not have a matching set of six suitable for attaching this 'ere curtain wire to Larrington Towers?

(Stomps off to B&Q in a huff)

[FifeingEejit]

I've found that text to speech is second only to international travel for discovering that the form of English you speak isn't standard English.

Although what gets tricky is when a German customs officer on the vogelflugline (rip) uses American English which matches Scottish English for the question he's asking but you convert it from English English...

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[Kim]

Why, in spite of The Sheds being positively afloat on a sea of screws, do I not have a matching set of six suitable for attaching this 'ere curtain wire to Larrington Towers?

I had that last week with 1.5" (or the metric equivalent) countersunk wood screws.

This week I am the proud owner of 200 of the above, and needed 1" pan head...

[Beardy]

Pan headed screws are surprising difficult to find in anything but stainless steel in my experience. It can be very frustrating.

[Mr Larrington]

Why, in spite of The Sheds being positively afloat on a sea of screws, do I not have a matching set of six suitable for attaching this 'ere curtain wire to Larrington Towers?

I had that last week with 1.5" (or the metric equivalent) countersunk wood screws.

This week I am the proud owner of 200 of the above, and needed 1" pan head...

I thought I had a box of eminently suitable screws (6 x 40mm) but I must have used them while performing open leg surgery on Lt. Col. Larrington (retd.)'s small round coffee table last year.

[ian]

So the dishwasher is playing up, didn't drain on Saturday, though waiting for a bit seems to have worked (there is no water in the bottom after re-running it) without having dispelled the 'error code.'

I'd turn it off and on, but one million points to anyone who can tell me where it is plugged in, because it's not where I thought it was, that's the extractor fan. And nope, not that one, that's the oven.

Having assayed the front panel LEDs and found the little manual to decrypt them, I am pleased to announce that the problem is that the dishwasher has water in it and I should consult my 'after-sales service.' Thanks, appliance.

[Mr Larrington]

While setting out the stall for the installation of a curtain wire in the Great Hall of Larrington Towers I brought my Park cable cutters in from the Sheds and put them on the table along with the Rawlplugs, drill, ratchet screwdriver, tape measure, shiny new screws, big box of drill bits ect & moreover ect.  But when I came actually to cut the wire to the right length there they are: gorn, vanishéd, disparu like Mother’s mink.

Bah!

[MattH]

In a similar vein, a week or two ago I found a jiffy bag containing four nicely rubber sealed automotive blade fuse holders from the "minimum qty 5" order when I repaired the mud-encrusted and corroded wiring around the battery on the dirt bike. I was looking for something else at the time, so just noted their presence.

Fast forward a couple of weeks, I really need one of those to protect some additional wiring for a fan-assisted roof vent I'm putting in the campervan. Can I remember in which teetering pile I saw them? Looks like I may well do my usual trick of buying some more, then finding the ones I had the morning the postie drops the new ones through the letterbox.

[Mr Larrington]

Somehow the Park cable cutters had migrated back into the Sheds.  But not into the toolbox, no, that would be too easy and imply that they had in fact been there all along.  Why, no, they were hiding in plain sight on top of the socket set

[TheLurker]

Why, no, they were hiding in plain sight...

Hoo yes.  A few days ago... measuring and stretching things for aeromodelling purposes and I put my trusty 40" rule down.  Three minutes later (I know this because the bell used to time the process had just gone off) I went to pick it up again. Waaah?  Where'd he go Vince?  Half an hour later I spy it,  not 6" from my left foot leaning against a sheet of cardboard.  It's not as if the rule is cardboard coloured, it's *shiny* metal.  Hopeless.