Talking with the Dragon

Husband's hands hurt when he types. They hurt so much, he has to apply liniment and wrap them in bandages. Yet he needs to write articles, opinions, letters, book chapters, studies, ... as part of his work. Enter the Dragon, Naturally Speaking.

Dragon is software that transcribes into text what you say into a microphone. It makes it immeasurably easier for Husband to get those documents out, because the majority of the text is easily handled by Dragon, and only editing changes are necessary. Dragon "learns" as you speak, remembering your accent, intonation, and tempo.

Grandpa has lots of stories to share about the race track and about the service he performed during WWII. However, he doesn't type well, and isn't inclined to write it out in longhand. He is, however, very interested in gadgets and technology, so Husband bought him his own Dragon, which Grandpa's friend has now installed. The very same day, we got an e-mail from Grandpa via Dragon. Success!

So we need to encourage this, and get him to record his stories. If he dictates e-mails and sends them to us, Husband can edit and document a truly colorful lifetime achievement.

Oh, and if you are all thumbs when trying to type on the little tiny keyboard of your cell phone, Dragon is also available for iPhone and Blackberry! And I can testify that the mobile app works just fine.

Modern Warfare

This afternoon, my library put on a Modern Warfare 2 tournament. A woman saw the flyers a couple of weeks ago and felt morally obligated to object, because she was personally opposed to all warfare. When the library justified its position, she got the Veterans for Peace involved, and they organized a phone and e-mail campaign trying to get the library to cancel the program. Our library director did some research and prepared "talking points" should there be protesters and/or media at the event. Daughter's comment on the protest: "Every teen who would come has already played the game, and their parents probably bought it for them."

Fast-forward to the actual program: 37 teens and adults played 2 vs 2 elimination rounds and had a great time! Participants had to be 17 years old or older (we checked IDs). A handful of protesters showed up, but they didn't stick around and didn't cause any trouble.

Four screens were set up back-to-back, so opoposing teams couldn't see each other's "reality", and each team had two players at a time. As players were eliminated, the next member of the team stepped up to take his place and the scorekeeper adjusted the team's rank. Women also competed.

I'm interested in the debrief - will find out Tuesday how the organizers felt, and whether they would do something like this again. We were prepared for a difficult time, but I think the protesters knew we had done our homework and they didn't push their luck.