Category: Opinion

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Skype Translation Halfway There

I watched the Microsoft video on Skype’s new Translator feature.  According to Microsoft it is a big leap in voice translation, thanks to the move to deep neural networks for speech recognition.  The video shows a German and an English speaker having a Skype call and Skype translating and synthesizing the speech in their respective native language.  All very cool and as the video states all very Star Trek.

It made me think about the speech recognition technologies I presently use.  Anyone who has access to such services has probably at one point shared a laugh with a friend or coworker over the latest voice to text faux pas.  Who hasn’t heard “Hey, look at what <insert service provider / technology brand name here> thinks you said”  They can be as hilarious as auto-correct mistakes on your cell phone.

I sure hope that the new Translator feature performs more reliably.  Can you image watching the the screen and seeing the reaction of the person you are talking to when Skype translates your  “mountain biker and trails” to “mountain biker entrails”.  In English you can easily see the mistake, but in German it is not so obvious -> “mountainbiker und wanderwegen” becomes “mountainbiker eingeweide”.

What struck me the most in the video was the apparent lack of progress in speech synthesis.  It sounds like they are still using the same voice engine that shipped with Windows XP.  This alone makes me look slightly askance at the new feature.  A sexy new thing like real time voice translation really deserves a better speech engine than that.  Something that sounds a bit more lifelike.  It really is not that much better sounding than the phone based technology we had in the 1980’s. Anyone else remember trying to program a Heathkit HERO robot to talk? No, just me?  Well, never mind then.  Cool stuff in the 80’s, lame today.

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Archie is Killed??

Archie Andrews is going to be killed off this summer in the Life with Archie series, after which the series will end.

Not sure what I think about that.  I never read the Life with Archie series.  It is his life as an adult, after the high school years.  It is purposely made as a hypothetical storyline.  I didn’t read it because I am not interested in how his character develops and changes over a multi-year or in this case multi-generational story.  I understand that after a while writers run out of ideas and start to look for ways to open up new subplots.  I think that is why shows sometimes die a slow death.

Adding new characters into an ensemble cast rarely works to revitalize a show.  Yes there are exceptions, Law and Order being a perfect example.  The reason that works is because the show’s formula does not change as the actors do.  They follow the same basic building blocks when developing new scripts.  When I sit down to watch I know what I am getting, and I like that or I wouldn’t be turing it on in the first place.

Cases where it doesn’t work are when you take an existing character and change their behaviours in an attempt to show “growth”.  Seriously, nobody wanted to see Ross and Rachel EVER get together.  It would break one of the fundamental chemistries in the show.  Spin offs often fail for the same reason.  Archie Bunker without Edith was, well, not Archie Bunker.  You could have made up an entirely new character to own the bar and wrote the same scripts.  Making it a spin off was just a cheap marketing ploy looking to leverage the brand.

Far better to end a show on a high note than to change it too much.   Leave us wanting more and let the show run in syndication for decades.  Seinfeld, The Closer, even Faulty Towers all ended at or near their peak viewership.  The Closer wrapped up when it was cable TV’s highest rated drama.  We’ll have to see whether the spin off (Major Crimes) is a success.  I believe it will be as the writers seem to be holding true to the character’s personalities and the original’s formula.

Back to Archie Andrews.  Archie is supposed to be all about the high school years.  It is the jalopy, the malt shop, the getting in trouble with Mr. Lodge.  A grown up Archie is not Archie,  its some other guy who only looks like Archie.  So go ahead and kill the doppelgänger.  As much as I think getting killed is out of place in an Archie comic, you should have never created grown up Archie in the first place.

 

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New Tunes

Since Apple included streaming internet radio as part of iTunes I have switched my habits as they relate to workplace music.  I used to spend most of my time at work on Songza or directly plugged into the streams of a couple of my old favorites like Radio Paradise. At home I use Sirius Radio or Songza depending where I am and what I am doing.

At work iTunes has now become the main source.  Especially two stations from Ireland. Both of these are labeled as Golden Oldies, one for 50’s songs and one for 60’s songs.  What I really like the best about them is they tap into  the recording industry practice at the time of having many artists record the same song.  These stations play many of the songs you all know and (hopefully) love but as recorded by other artists than we expect.  How about Unchained Melody but by Jimmy Young instead of The Righteous Brothers?  

The second aspect I like about these stations are they play songs from artists we are more familiar with but songs that never really made the North American charts. Lots of UK charted songs that many listeners here will not know.  It’s kind of like one of my other favourite pastimes, random Youtube surfing.  You never know what you will find next to broaden your net horizons.

 

 

 

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Holy Ship Batman!

Last week I was cleaning up old email and found a gift certificate I received from Cisco for participating in a survey three years ago.  I couldn’t recall ever ordering anything from the logo store.  Not sure if the three year old gift certificate would still be good I surfed over to see what my rediscovered $25 would buy me.

I have long since stopped ever wearing branded clothing.  “Vendorwear” was a pretty common look when I was a core network guy working in the Engineering department but as a customer facing employee with multiple product lines I make it a point to never wear a logo.  Even outside of work I won’t wear vendor logos.  I like to keep work and home as separate as possible. I am probably geeky enough without advertising it.

After ruling out all branded clothing, anything over $25, and all printed books I had the usual collection of cups, pens, mice, and office miscellany one always finds. Since I am partial to the Apple Magic mouse, and my wife already has the largest collection of coffee cups any three households needs I eventually narrowed it down to a simple nondescript notebook.  I can always use a notebook even if just to sketch.  At $11.99 I could even buy two.

Ok, let’s see if that gift certificate is still good.  Add to cart -> checkout -> enter number.  Success!  Wow, I was betting against that.  Cool.  Maybe I will go back and make it two notebooks then.  Edit shopping cart…whoa!  $42 shipping??!?!  For a 7×5′ notebook shipped using ground economy??

Around the office we sometimes comment that with the ever changing certification requirements some vendors must be in the training business more than the hardware business (yeah, you know who who are).  Now I think they are also in the shipping business.

Edit cart – delete item.  Back to the email -> delete.

Thanks for nothing.

 

 

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I don’t follow mainstream news sources

I hardly ever make much attempt to follow the news, or at least news from the mainstream sources. I don’t watch national or regional TV news shows. I don’t read national or international newspapers. I read my local paper maybe 2 or 3 times a week. I surf to news web sites a scan headlines maybe once or twice a month.

Does that make me out of touch? Am I being irresponsible with my civic duties? I don’t know, maybe. I don’t believe it does though. Being responsible also includes critical thought, counterpoint opinions, and actual action on your part. Eating a staple diet of headlines doesn’t do that and some will argue it prevents it, but I don’t want to go down that rat hole today. Suffice it to say that many major news outlets no longer do much real journalism anymore. The 5th estate is a watered down thing.

This morning I fired up one of my favorite aggregation tools Flipboard and looked through the News category. Grim. Below I have listed the story counts by subject and tone. I went until I started to see repeating subjects, in today’s case the zoo that killed the healthy young giraffe and fed it to the carnivores at the zoo. I ended up scanning through 37 articles.

Subject – count of stories
Immigration/xenophobia – 3
Nuke fear/drum beating – 5
Bad economy – 2
Terror attack – 5
State sanctioned violence – 4
Bad politicians – 2
Articles about anything in my country – 0

Today is also day 3 of the Sochi Olympics. The first Olympic story ran in 36th place. The first positive story ran in position 27. The total number of positive stories was 2 out of 37.

This list of stories is advertised as a hand curated list of the biggest stories in the world. Sorry, but medical marijuana in Alabama, a lack of action in the US Congress, and the scrapping of an old US aircraft carrier seriously can’t be the biggest stories in the world.

I like Flipboard, and will continue to use it. I guess I need to tweak the News feeds. Obviously their curators and I have a different opinion about what’s news. Besides, I would prefer to encourage positive change by celebrating the successes rather than more handwringing over the failures.

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Yeah, whatever, buddy

I know I guy who thinks his poop doesn’t stink.  You know the type, the kind that cultivates an entourage to help maintain the illusion.  Who’s every project has a superlative adjective; the first, the biggest, the most complex, the most strategic.  I’m not saying that he does bad work.  Quite the contrary.

It’s just that he, like most people of this ilk, is highly competitive.  To him it is a zero sum game. In order for him to advance someone must fall.  The most common target for people like this are the ones they consider to be the biggest competition.  One of the favorite weapons I see used are campaigns to undermine the credibility of others.  Anything from innuendo to out right lies to actively undoing other peoples work.  Claiming undue credit is another very common tact. Restricting access to information or distributing misinformation is also common.

I recently got a message from someone looking for help to bail out a project in trouble.  Seems some promises were made and not kept, some deadlines missed.  Guess who’s project?  Yup, Mr. Perfect’s. As tempting as it may be to rub his face in it like he would do and has done I can’t do that.  It’ s just not who I am.

I am a strong believer that everything comes around.  The past will eventually catch up to these people even if I may not be there to see it.  I consider my reaction taking the high rode.  Other people may call me a fool, and that’s ok by me too.  I carry my own ruler and by my ruler I measure up just fine thank you.

 

 

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On The Road…please keep driving…away.

My wife and I watched On The Road the other night. This is the Walter Salles rendition of the Jack Kerouac book of the same name. At the end of the movie we both had the exact same opinion; the movie had the exact same feel as the book and neither of us cared.

I am not saying the movie is completely faithful to the book. There is no way I could say that because after three attempts to actually finish the book I finally gave up. Reading On The Road is like reading a 1000 page technical specification. Each page tells you something and the story advances but there is no point to it. There is no compelling reason to turn the page.

The movie is the same. Each new scene is a consistent extension of the movie, but who cares? I have no more interest in the characters and their situation than I do the day to day office life of my neighbor three doors down. I don’t blame the director, or the actors, or the script. I think they probably did an commendable job bringing the book to the screen. The problem is the book, the story itself.

The movie (and the 100 or so pages of the book that I managed to read) unfold like a diary of a day in the life of the average guy. Sure, they did unusual not so average things. Not everyone runs off to Mexican whorehouses on a whim and gets dysentery. Not everyone drives across the USA living on shoplifted food and amphetamines. But who cares? There is no tension. We don’t care about the people. We are not interested in their next exploit.

Maybe it’s generational and I just don’t relate. The Beat Generation is before my time. I don’t appreciation Johnny Knoxville either. Is On The Road simply the Jackass of it’s time? A bunch of 20 somethings off doing immature and irresponsible party tricks to the amusement of only themselves and their friends?

A book that rates being labeled a classic and called a “defining work of the post-war generation”? Maybe. Entertainment? No way.

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Creative Cloud is unCreative Robbery

I was very disappointed to find out Adobe had decided to end sales of Creative Suite in favor of a leasing model through Creative Cloud. Judging from a few minutes surfing the web the vast majority of web posters agree.

In my case I had looked at the option when I was thinking about upgrading to CS6. Based on the upgrade costs and frequency I calculated an upgrade to CS6 was more economical for me than moving to the Cloud. Since I had already made the big investment in the original purchase, upgrades were about half the price. Yes, some of the Cloud features interest me. I would like to play with Muse, but not at $180 per year. I also do not need to storage and collaboration aspect of Creative Cloud. I already have several cloud storage accounts and as a one man design shop I have no real collaboration requirements.

Frankly I don’t see how Adobe can claim CC is cheaper even if you include the original full retail cost of the software. It looks cheaper for the first 10 years but then the pendulum swings in favor of buying. Yes, 10 years is a long time but how long have you owned a copy of Microsoft Office? Designers who use the applications in CS are long term users. Career users. These are not typically consumer level buyers. No one I know would buy Illustrator over the other alternatives out there just to play around, not when Illustrator is 5 to 6 times the price.

The other big gotcha with Adobe’s plan and possibly the biggest one is when you quite paying, you have nothing. Going back to my 10 payback model, you would have spent $6000 and will have exactly nothing to show for it the day you let you subscription lapse. With a purchase model I would still have functioning copies of all of the applications in the suite.

I do like the cloud only concept though. I usually buy as a download if I can, and avoiding the packaging step does allow for immediate version updates as bug fixes and new features are developed. On this point I agree with Adobe.

It really comes down to the pricing. Adobe has just doubled my future cost of ownership and I have received very little in return. Practically nothing. Certainly nothing worth more than $5 per month for some storage.

I have to agree with the posting populous. It a straight out money grab. I am going to hold off for as long as possible. Maybe they will get enough of a backlash and change their mind, just like they did with the Touch app Kuler.