Speech Server, Book Writing, Code Camps and Pimped out rides
For the last week, things have gotten kind of weird in my life. And by most standards, I'm pretty friggin weird to begin with. I stared working with Wally McClure on writing a book and so far, things have been going really well. But so far I've only encountered the easy part. This week, I am going to get 'busy'. Busy in the sense that in 21 days, I'll have 3 code camps, a web cast, and two books due. I know, I keep writing about this but I'm trying to get myself pysched for it because falling on my face, isn't really an option.
Lately, I've been mobile within the apartment and for some really dumb reason, I moved from my office and bedroom to my living room to work. In my living room is the TV, which is almost never on. This week, I've been watching it while working. I CAN'T Believe it, BUT I'M Actually starting to really get hooked on Pimp my ride. Watching complete morons get their cars worked over, and get stuff like a Tablet PC that's configured to recognize their rhymes, well, it's interesting. I used to really hate bling bling vehicles, but the high tech nature of Pimp My Ride is intriguing even if I know damned good and well that those Tablet PC's live about 3 hours before mmoving to the Pawn shops.
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Speech Server. Well, I've got 2 presentations on it next weekend. Of the people presenting at Charlotte, I'm probably the least impressive of the bunch. However, I honestly think I'm going to have most compelling presentation. I have many shortcomings in life, but being a braggart isn't one of them. Nonetheless, I'm absolutely convinced that I'm going to steal the show Saturday. Not because I'm the man or any crap like that, I just have a topic that by the mere virtue of what I'm doing, is just too cool.
Ok, so what am I going to do specifically? For starters, I decided that I'm going to simulate a conversation between a dude and virtual wife. Just take all the typical stereotypes of a wife, and build her into a grammar. Nothing to fancy there to be honest, but it's something that will probably get a few chuckles. So where did I get the data for the wife being that I'm not married? Well, you might be thinking Kim right? Wrong. I'm not suicidal. Actually, I'm using Peggy and Marcy from Married with Children. All in all, the hardest part of this so far has been accomodating preambles. What is a preamble? Well, in the rest of the country you probalby have no concept of them, but here in the South, preambles are a friggin fine art. Let's say that you want me to fix X as my manager. So we built a speech server to expect X as an input, check it against a Bug Database and make the determination from there. A preamble would be something like this:
- Goddamit Bill, you told me you fixed [X]
- Hi Bill, how's it going today? I heard you got a new tablet? How do you like it? Did you have fun this weekend? Well, when you have a chance can you take a look at [X], it appears not to be working
- Howdy Bill. How You Do? Waaayaaaah, I wuz wundrin if you might kuld take a look at [X] when you have a moment.
People not only speak differently in respect to pronunciation, but in sentence constructs as well. No one north of the Mason Dixon line ever “Might Could” have done anything. No one south of Pennsylvania ever Warshed anything. But this is the crap that encompasses preambles. This is a key concept because you really don't want to waste any of your Speech Server's resources trying to figure out what the hell Warsh means, when most people wouldn't want to know if they could.
I'm thinking about doing the later presentation to a South Park Dialog btw. For instance, I'm watching Extreme Martial Arts on TV right now. For those that know me, the fact I even have a TV on shojuld come as a shock. But I am. I've also been eating Vicodin by the boat load all week, so maybe that's contributing to it. Here's my plan for a Show Stealer:
- I'm going to break everyone into one of two groups
- Group A gets to be Kyle's mom
- Group B gets to be Cartmen
- One by one, each group gets to select their response.
When they are all done, I'll implement them via two different programs. Now, if I can get both programs to talk to each other based on the audience's responses, and the dialog goes as planned, then I got it right.
Currently, to bookmakers favor the fat goofy guy on Vicodin.
I have one other idea as the Coup de gras but I think it's sucking compared to the last one. I'm going to set up a dialog between my laptop and my cell phone. For instance, have the laptop ask the PDA for Steve Ballmer's cell phone number. Then when it gets the reply, go ahead and call Steve. He doesn't usually pick up, but I figure if he takes a call an it's a Speech Server talking to him - he'll be cool with it.
Any ideas Suggestions?