Voiced post

Hello people! So I decided to type this blog by using my voice.This is the first time I am using the voice typing feature in Google Docs. It's amazing to see how smart Google has become at voice recognition. 

I decided to let the blog be written without me correcting any word that Google has written. And if I have to really correct one, I would let you know that that particular word has been corrected by me manually.

I find that Google has not made a single mistake so far and can recognize my voice flawlessly. I always thought that speech recognition would be an extremely difficult task for computers to do because of all the accents that it has to address and correct for. But it looks like that does not seem to be an issue anymore. Everyday I keep getting amazed by the level of progress that we are doing as a society. It's scary to imagine the future.

I'm still struggling with punctuations. So I had to press the enter key and start new paragraphs. As I'm voicing these two paragraphs above I realized that it's a lot more easier to talk than to write. So maybe in the future the "writer's block" may be a thing of history. I can also imagine that if documents  start writing the way they do right now with my voice we could actually write a lot more as well as a lot faster than we do right now, and entire conversations could be just written down this way without someone having to actually write them down manually. So writers would just have to proofread what was automatically typed by the computer already. That's it from me folks, it's actually a weird feeling to talk to the computer and see it write down as you speak to it.

This section was written:
 
After I voice typed the section above, I realized that Google gets my punctutations incorrectly. So I had to paragarph and put periods and also put quotes for the "writer's block" above. The rest of the speech is as it is - verbatim - perfect. If you want to try it out for yourself, I would recommend you open a Google Doc in Chrome or Edge browser and try this function.

Acknowledge ephemeral happiness

 In our relentless pursuit of happiness, I realize that most of us have stopped acknowledging the ephemeral happiness we derive from small wordly moments every single day. 21 years into the 21st century we actually experience a lot more happiness on a daily basis than anytime in the history of homo sapiens. Most of us experience unprecedented levels of comfort, access to amazing healthcare and nutrition. Yet we as a society have now become increasingly divided, unhappy, irritable, stressed and unhappy.

While curbing societal pressures and controlling stress is something beyond everyone's reach, acknowledging happiness is definitely something we all can (and should do!). Ideally, throughout the day, we should learn to pause, acknowledge and appreciate the simple pleasures in our life. Complex things like airconditioners, refridgerators, microwaves, telephones, internet, televisions and simple things like hot water, taps, electricity etc. etc. all have enriched our life by leaps and bounds. We have completely stopped acknowledging the level of ease we have gotten used to, and constantly think of the next thing!

As you read this blog, I hope you think about all the little comforts that you have gotten used to, and starting today, pause and appreciate these fleeting moments of happiness as life passes by at breakneck speed!

Mac for the win!

 After having used Windows for all my working life, my new company forced me to switch to a Mac. I was terrified, unhappy and was not sure I would be able to cope with the switch. The first week was a nightmare, cause I had to unlearn all my shortcuts.

For starters, Mac has no backspace, no Windows Key, no Home, no End, no Page-up and no Page-down. Function keys are in the fancy touch bar and there is this key called "Command" which does most of the work. The mouse scrolls in the opposite direction, the concept of Desktops is different and there is no start menu.

Anyway, I have now been using the Mac for almost 3 weeks now, and I think I am surviving. I am confused with a lot of my shortcuts, but slowly and steadily I am getting my speed and efficiency back. The best part of learning to use Mac was to just Google search things like "How to Page Down in Mac" and you would get the right answer to your question almost always.

The interesting part though is - I hardly use any desktop tools anymore. Almost all my work is done in the Google Workspace suite. Though I am very familiar with the Office 365 suite of products, I am lucky to have also used Google Workspace extensively before.

My preliminary impression of Mac is not that extraordinarily different than Windows. Build-qualitywise Macbook pro looks definitely "cooler" than my trusty old Thinkpad X1. But that may have not been a big reason for me to change (ever).

I have almost found equivalent alternatives for all software that I used on Windows. The only problem now is that when I go back to my Windows Laptop, I mistype my shortcuts!