September 2016 Daily Stepping

[inspiresuccess]

Lynx,

I had a book years ago that charted my biorhythms and it really helped me. Is there someplace online where I can get them?

[Lynx]

Hi IS,

Yes, try searching "biorhythms" and look over the different charting formats from the various sites. Some people have supposed there 3 or more other rhythms, but the original 3 work well enough.

It's public domain (basic math, start with birth as day 0 and all 3 cycles begin at once—keep looping the cycles till death) so a lot of people have put their minds and calculators to great use making them available.

Lynx

[Elaine Glimme]

Looked up my biorhythms. They were right on.

[Lynx]

Hi all,

7 am and couldn't stay asleep so got up and will slowly get ready for my day. Have a long brain-involved meeting (decisions using consensus) the a break then a long play to watch, then getting home, then drafting something for the play. It's a rainy day and lots of traffic and I'll be taking public transportation.

Been playing with voice to text but it misses so many words that sometimes it feels more bother than benefit.

Happy Elaine that your check with biorhythms felt on track.

Funny, now that I'm up and poking around I feel drowsy.

A long day feels like its getting longer before it even starts.

Lynx

[inspiresuccess]

Lynx,

What voice to text are you using?

[Lynx]

Hi ya'll,

IS - it's the built-in dictation app in my Mac, OS 10.9 and 10.11. By the time I got home I just made fast notes in pencil, some dictation, and went to sleep.

Got up full of ideas and went to work after making my Steinbeck Warm-up on PsychCentral. My handle there is Revu2.

Lynx

[inspiresuccess]

Hi Lynx,

I have a PC and use Dragon Naturally Speaking, which obviously you can't use on a Mac.

I'm looking forward to reading whatever you write about Steinbeck.

[Lynx]

Hi,

For clarification, IS, when I say Steinbeck Warmup I mean I'm adopting his practice of writing a letter to his editor every morning before he got into the flow if his novels. He did this with Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden. Its like finger warming exercises to get the mind engaged with writing before actually getting to his serious writing.

I've tried one other dictation to text software and it didn't work perfectly either. I'm African American. I wonder if these are only tested with white voices?

Lynx

[inspiresuccess]

...when I say Steinbeck Warmup I mean I'm adopting his practice of writing a letter...
I'm African American. I wonder if these are only tested with white voices?
Lynx

Steinbeck -- got it. I thought you were going to write something ABOUT his warm-up letters and how he used them as a writer.

Voice recognition. I've been using Dragon for about 7 years. In the beginning the recognition was terrible. Every version improved and the recent one is really good. The fact that you TRAIN your voice recognition with your own accent should take care of any differences. Perhaps yours doesn't have a good "recognition" system.

I hope you find one that works, because it's really amazing to just sit and talk instead of type. I love it! Plus, I talk a lot faster than I type!

[inspiresuccess]

I checked to see if Dragon offers products for Mac. They do.

As far as training goes, you do a short "get started" training, then if you want, a longer more detailed training, and training individual words. I found the short training was really good, but I added the longer training to perfect it, and occasionally add new vocabulary words to my list.

[Lynx]

Hi,

Re: dictation s/w — yup, the lost years ago when I first tried I did the whole long training routine, before eventually giving up.

Apple's dictation is probably made by Nuance the same folks that make Dragon, but with less as it's bundled in and not a separate purchase. I just read a side by side review for 2013 and that reviewers results parallel my own.

It's fun and I overwrite it constantly when I a hurry so I don't totally forget what I meant to say.

Yes, it is a bit of magic, but this whole computer thing is a bit of magic.

Lynx

[Lynx]

Hi

Only now am I getting prepped for getting into my next journalism piece. I'm standing at my standing desk and feeling full of ideas, which I know could translate into minutes of frustrating research if the answers are not readily apparent.

I'm writing about who polic*s the p*lice at the state level. There's pressure on the legislature to write new laws and a passive aggressive reaction of diffusing the work of the commission the legislature has punted to. Like this is going to fade away.

* In place as a wink to NSA spying. Who p-s the p, indeed.

Okay 40 minutes of research and I'll check back in.

Lynx

[Elaine Glimme]

Yes, to everything you two are saying. I have Dragon, but I broke the headphones, and the replacement set I bought is not compatible. Didn't get around to fixing this. Maybe I'll do it today.

Re warm-ups. Writing something on the Boards is my warm -up.

I hate to say "good luck," with your projects, because it's mostly about work, and luck doesn't have very much to do with it. Still, good luck doesn't hurt.
Good luck, good steppin', and good computers to us all.

[Lynx]

Hi folks,

Finished my article rewrite (tagged 2.0). Threw out the back half and wrote a fresh lead section and made it more topical.

In the meantime, I'm sooo behind in getting to some other stuff.

Evening now and in about half an hour I'll finish slicing up some apples we're dehydrating (in English, "drying out").

Who set the rules for when we use hydrate and when we use water? People water their lawns, but hydrate their bodies?

But to water ones body sounds like a bath or shower.

Tried hydrate for cooking rice once but my cooking coach said water was better.

Lynx

[KarenP]

I was away on vacation. Nice to see this thread! I did a lot of writing on vacation and my "steps" are to shape my book (as I also finish going through Wishcraft (finally got a hard copy so it will be easier to follow than the electronic version on my phone).

Cheers to all!
Karen