On a whim (and I have lots of those) I bought a bunch of cross-stitching projects to make for my friend Anne for this Xmas. Sadly, just because they're less than $10 to buy, does not make them quick to do. I quite like cross-stitch though, it's a lot like pixel art and making things with my hands is always rewarding.
But the problem was how to find time to devote to actually making them, because I practically live on my computer when I'm not at work, and cross-stitch takes both hands and pretty much all of my attention. The solution is to get my computer to read to me.
Macs have been able to speak arbitrary text for a very long time (since at least the late eighties when the Talking Moose was pretty damn funny), and the speech system has been getting progressively more sophisticated. I get my computer to read stories to me, which have the advantage of being real sentences and it's quite good at the subtleties of English. Emma-sensei and I were testing it the other night, and it clearly uses context to decide how to pronounce words. For instance, in sentences it was (mostly) correct when it used reject as a verb (short re) or a noun (long ree).
I have a list of words that it consistently gets wrong though, and probably banal (to rhyme with anal) is my favourite. Banal conversation was never so amusing. (Or is this just an Americanism? It certainly says "erb garden".)
I've finished a book mark (Tigger with butterflies!) and almost finished one of the pictures (Tigger again, this time with flowers and trees (*@#ing trees)).
I might try to resurrect a miracle and start beading again. Most of you probably remember the beer coolers I made years ago with beaded thingies on the front. I've been trying to remember what the penguins on "Lager Drink" looked like. I don't suppose anyone has any pictures?
1 comment:
I remember beer.
Does that help?
I thought not.
P.S. Actually I remember the cool coolers, too. Wow, that's a memory from the waaayyy back machine.
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