johnbuckleyonline

Twitter Updates for 2010-08-11

johnb — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Like the man said “We’re all over this video like stink on a Wookie!” http://bit.ly/bR1uHl #Lando #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-08-07

johnb — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Shameful that supposedly reputable techblogs can run hit pieces without bothering 2 check basic facts. Slashdot/Gizmodo RTFM b4 u post crap. #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-08-07

johnb — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Shameful that supposedly reputable techblogs can run hit pieces without bothering 2 check basic facts. Slashdot/Gizmodo RTFM b4 u post crap. #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-08-03

johnb — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Amazed by the number of unsecured wifi networks (4) I cAn access from this village pub. #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-07-31

johnb — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Ahh afternoon sunshine… delightful. It’s probably been there all day but to be honest I only just opened the curtains! #

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Backwards dancing

johnb — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 02:10:10 +0000

A few short words before bed, before rest. Before I enter once again the house of the night and the hush and the hum of slow breathing overtake me. This sleep shall remove me from myself, replacing all the topographical certainties of the day with the unknown shifting landscape of the night.

Once I am away on that journey, I shall not return until morning. Nor shall I much recall, the echoing halls through which I have wandered, or the luminous ebbing skies I have looked upon. The tumbling hills that the mad crowd chased me down shall flutter away forgotten, and the dark thickets I hid in no shall no longer bind me.

I was happy, backwards dancing, with my beloved in my arms. We were spinning both together before the moment she was gone. Then I scaled a rolling hillside whilst the darkness called to keep me and I ran before a baying horde who always seemed to seek me. These stolen fractured moments and beating borrowed hours, return to their residing place, inside a wall of towers.

Where does that me who walks the night, sleep in the light of day? How do the dreams that shine so bright, dim and fade to grey. What hopes that lies within my rest, shall see their way across, the river of forgetfulness wherein so much is lost?

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Twitter Updates for 2010-07-27

johnb — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Well that was thunderously good.#Sherlock #

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Twitter Updates for 2010-07-25

johnb — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:59:59 +0000

Hilarious & scary Steve Jobs song from Mann. http://bit.ly/dke6dt #
@LEMills glad u enjoyed it. Agreed. The finale was superbly nutty, moving and most of all enormously ambitious fun. Great little show. #
I watched ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ today. Complex, thematically solid & great photography.Excellent movie. Highly recommended. #

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Dragon Dictation for iPad – Impressions

johnb — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:26:30 +0000

I’m testing the Dragon dictation speech recognition software on Sunday, 25 July 2010 at 1.00 p.m. in the afternoon on my iPad. The first results appear to be completely successful. I had decided to approach this as a testing and software analysis exercise, but already I’m so completely amazed at the accuracy of the software that this review may quickly dissolve into a series of exclamations about how good it is!

I began sitting in my armchair, but the next moment I was standing, walking & moving into another room, switching fluidly between speaking, typing and editing on the virtual keyboard. Eureka! A gift has arrived. Thank you Dragon Dictate!

Combined with the iPads interface and its touch sensitive screen, recording my voice with Dragon software is simply easy. It’s one button software, with minimal icons, one of which is a little white keyboard icon at the base of the screen. This allows me to switch quickly into editing mode. From there it’s a simple matter to add or subtract to/from the text. It’s miraculously easy. It works! It’s a vision of a more convenient future. One where I don’t have to physically type every single thing I want expressed. One where I can simply open my mouth, speak, and edit later. Or even, switch fluidly between the two.

My thoughts are being electronically recorded & edited at a speed not a hundred seconds away from where I’m having them. Captured by a machine, effortlessly to a flat LCD screen connected via Wi-Fi to the ever thousand eyes, minds and beating hearts of the Internet audience. For someone who normally finds the physical aspect of typing time-consuming, RSI inducing and a tad frustrating, it’s deeply heartening progress. I have hoped for something like this for a very long time. Ever since I spent weeks trying to train MacSpeech to recognize anything I was saying about 4 years ago.

I’ve seen so many failures in the area of affordable and practical speech-recognition software. To be presented with something more or less representative of what I have spoken moments before, requiring minimal effort to correct, allowing me a free reign in the editing process and which does a seemingly capable job of understanding almost every spoken utterance is to to me both a little thrilling and amazing. This could be a boon to many types of people and even a lifeline to a few others.

In this technological age it is perhaps not ordinary anymore to simply wonder at sheer incredibility of the technology we are now using. In the West we have begun to feign indifference to its marvels, despite the fact that it is doing some amazing things. This my friends is one of them. Yes it has a few flaws, it even crashes once in a while. Yet it is mostly practical, useable speech-recognition on a portable device that costs less than £500. Congratulations to all of the programmers and developers at Dragon dictation you have produced a wonderful little piece of software .I hope this is just the start and we can finally begin to see speech recognition as simply another tool we use to communicate our thoughts.

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Back from beyond…

johnb — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 12:48:19 +0000

Hello again Internet!

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog. Apart from the odd tweet, there”s been no new content here for the best part of a year. However, when I woke up this morning I decided to begin posting again; an action which I’m sure will delight my regular reading audience of none!

A few years ago I had three websites on-the-go. I was constantly posting, updating, writing news articles & creating podcasts. I was busy. Somewhere along that road, I lost the thread of what I was saying & the joy vanished. So I stopped… When you’re editing and designing a website, you can begin, (over time) to write to please your audience & not yourself. If that happens, you lose a certain sort of freedom. It becomes a chore, not a pleasure.

There can be a great joy in thinking out loud when you think that nobody else is listening. Speaking out into the void can be liberating. it allows you to let go of your thoughts and feelings, they flow out unfettered and in a world that often encourages self-censorship that it can be beautiful.

I’d like this website to reflect who I am again. Not the me I was, but the me I am becoming. As my wife sometimes says about herself, “I’m a work in progress”. My life has changed very dramatically since I was last here and I’d like this site to reflect that.

A baby is growing in the womb of my beloved. A someone whom nobody except the creator has ever met. An unknown person, who will depend upon us wife for so many things. Who will change us in ways we cannot even imagine. It is an awesome, humbling and beautiful responsibility. Already, it has profoundly changed my life. Now I’m looking forward to sharing some of my thoughts here and to rediscovering blogging, the way it was when I first started. A simple uncomplicated pleasure, a place where I can just let go, be myself, and say the things I want to say.

Thank’s for reading this far if you did, I’m off to grab some lunch. Have a great day, maybe I’ll see you around the ‘interwebs’

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