Voice to Text using Windows

OK so I feel like the first thing that I have to say is that this is really uncomfortable for me that was something I really had to get over at the beginning of the pandemic was how uncomfortable and awkward and embarrassed I feel when I talk to a computer so that was like something that I I had to deal with I especially with zoom and when there’s technical issues still it it just like I don’t know I I feel terrible about it so I I feel embarrassed during this that’s my first thing the second thing I guess that I’m going to talk about is movie that I just watched so I finally watched dream scenario I am a pretty big Nicolas Cage fan so so I’m you know try to watch everything that he puts out and I think lately there’s been a cage renaissance of sorts but dream scenario was amiss for me which is interesting I think because on paper there’s a lot there that I should like I I would argue it was miscategorized by almost everything like the YouTube algorithm says that it’s a comedy we rented it off of YouTube I find that very interesting because it’s certainly not funny but at the same time I think it’s funny and maybe the same way that the office is funny which I can’t watch also because I find it so uncomfortable so maybe what I’m arguing is that the office is not a comedy either and so maybe I think it’s not a horror movie either although it seems like the marketing kind of leaned into the horror aspect and there is like a nod to that idea that it’s a horror movie but it but it doesn’t it does remain in that space enough I think to be fully called over film I I think I have to argue that it it’s creating a new genre of of of a new sub genre of horror maybe instead of something like body horror you know a horror that really focuses on embodiment of of like fear and and modifications and changes to your physical body I argue that dream scenario is maybe the first entry social horror genre and not one where you are looking at society as a horrifying thing but the social death of a of a person I guess is maybe what we’re talking about like watching someone who’s totally graceless just fail over and over and over again is social horror I think that’s I think that’s horrifying I would hate to for that to happen to me add but why I thought it was a miss I mean I think that it didn’t go very far in any direction and I think that is a complaint that I wind up happening with a lot of Nicolas Cage movies I wonder if it’s because I think that everything that he’s in should be so bombastic that when something is simply just I don’t know typical maybe I think that’s disappointing when it could be going to absolute extremes like to contrast this let’s look at at another couple of semi recent I say semi recent because time lately has been really compressed but semi recent cage films like you did the color out of space and that was I thought amazing I mean that was it really went in every direction that it needed to go I thought he did Mandy which has become one of my favorite films I think Mandy also goes it pursues the direction that it that it sets out in and and it perceives it to an extreme which I find to be much more interesting than something like dream scenario which I think has some interesting ideas the social death and explored in a supernatural way which as opposed to like a more typical drama exploring social death is interesting to me but I I didn’t think that it went far enough I think what could have been really interesting is if the film had played more with the dream aspect and moved directly into is it real or is it dream more and more of the film taking place within dream I think that could have been an interesting place to just explore but you know what it’s been 3 days and I’m still thinking about it so maybe I’m not giving it enough credit for what it accomplished anyway these are my 5 minutes of talking about Nicolas Cage films and talking to my computer and feeling very embarrassed about it the whole time thank you for reading or listening thank you computer for listening thank you reader for reading

Reflection

It appears that Windows voice to text when used out of the box with no settings tweaks eschews punctuation entirely, so that’s an impactful difference. This lack of punctuation really emphasizes my rambling. I do a lot of asides when speaking, more than I do when I’m writing, and especially more than I do when I’m doing more typical academic writing. Even in the process of writing this reflection I’m a very iterative writer, I re-read a lot, make tweaks, swap words. In oral communication that’s not an option. I’m itching to edit that text but am going to resist.

By and large the voice to text functionality captured the words I was saying. Without any punctuation it becomes difficult to parse, especially since speaking flows organically. It also doesn’t capture proper nouns to capitalize, which makes sense as a limitation of speech to text. I tested this in ChatGPT’s speech-to-text feature on their iOS app and it captured proper nouns to capitalize them. I think that is neat to reflect on even if it just the technology limitations of the default Windows speech-to-text versus a flagship consumer AI product.

I consider the lack of proper nouns a mistake as it makes reading the text more difficult. I’ve been writing a lot of alt text and image descriptions and using NVDA to navigate courses lately at work, and this has been something I’ve mulled over – proper nouns are contextually only important in written communication, but when they are missing I do find it disruptive. But I am able to follow when people tell me stories verbally without capitalization… interesting.

My vocal ticks like ums and hmms all seem to have been captured in different ways – as letters or other words but not typically captured as ums or ahs. I consider that a mistake as it’s changing the contents of the text. I wonder if it’s doing that not because it’s difficult to identify an um as an um, but trying to distance from the idea that the content is voice to text, as written text wouldn’t include ums and ahs. Trying to obfuscate that it’s a transcript of spoken word perhaps?

Had I scripted and rehearsed this I think there would be less asides, less wandering, and a much more concrete structure. Less errors from the vocal tisks being transcribed. Overall a much easier reading experience – but I would imagine less interesting to listen to! A space that would be interesting to explore is the contextual importance of some grammar rules like proper noun capitalization. It bothers me when reading a text that doesn’t have it, but it simply doesn’t exist for oral storytelling. On the flip side – what exists in oral story telling that doesn’t in written? I keep setting up and knocking down examples for myself – emphasis can be communicated through bold, italicizing, or size. Pacing: through…. punctuation. Characterization or accent can be dissected and written but I’ll admit I often have to read out loud to understand what is being said when accents are written in books (the Nac Mac Feegle spring to mind, to bring another mention of Sir Terry Pratchett to my writing in this course). I think that oral storytelling’s slippery, ephemeral nature is the starkest contrast to written storytelling. Written text is captured, oral storytelling resists that capture.