Patience is a curious virtue.

Patience is a curious virtue. I've often considered that I have a lot of patience. However there is still things that get under my skin. I am trying out speech recognition software. I've found that I have very little patience for computers. I'm currently trying to use windows speech recognition software to write this blog. But it is not going so well.

For example I just had the say new paragraph about five times for it to finally recognize that I wanted a new line. And every time I try to type new paragraph or new line, I have to say "literal new paragraph" (That is it. I give up, this software is practically useless) The people who develop speech recognition software use the argument that people can speak 120 words a minute yet they can only type at less than 40 words a minute as a way to draw them in. My problem is figuring out what I want to say. This lack of inspiration is what makes me type at 40 words a minute (ish). Consequently, this lack of inspiration causes me to speak at 40 words a minute as well. In fact I could argue that because I have spent more time using a keyboard than I have using speech recognition, I end up thinking in type faster than I think in voice.

On top of this argument is the fact that I have go go back and correct a minimum of three things per line when using speech recognition. This constant stop and start in composition interrupts my thought process and I can't think of what to say next. I didn't mean to take up a whole blog post with a rant about speech recognition. However it does seem fitting. I have patience with people, they are people, they are imperfect by nature. Computers on the other hand hold very little of my patience. Computers are tools, they are supposed to make life easier. Yet at times my computer becomes so unwieldy. It is like trying to weed my garden with a back hoe. I want to do some small task but it ends up being such a hassle.

Like trying to write this blog. It would be some small thing. If I could do it with speech recognition software, it would be nice, yet the software just is too unwieldy and turns the tiny job into a huge mess. I will have to say though, I wanted to use speech recognition because November is approaching fast. November means National Novel Writing Month. This means that I have to figure out how to write 50,000 words in a month. When I attempted this two years ago I had my trusty palm that I could rely on, during breaks at work I could just pop open my portable keyboard and away I would go. Now I have to find some other way of efficiently adding to the word count between work and home. I thought I would record me dictating my book, but seeing as how poorly my software is working, I don't think that is an option anymore.

It is crazy how someone can be tolerant and forgiving and patient with one thing so well, yet be viciously unforgiving and borderline abusive with another thing.