Wrist and everyday magic

Fly into that world you’ve been waiting for forever!

As promised, I got some more to do at work. The last two days I have been doing some data entry, which is a good job for me since I am pretty resistant to boredom. Unfortunately the first day in particular was really hard on my wrist, because I had to mouse a lot.

My wrists are damaged for life, something I wrote (and dictated) about years ago, it is still scattered through my archives. I thought for sure at one point that I would end up disabled. (Not an economic disaster here in Norway, but not very compatible with my current aspiration of giving back to society.) Meditation and exercise have restored my arm to the point where I don’t notice the problem in daily life; I can even type fairly large amounts of text. But if I have to use a mouse more than a little, such as I did at work now (or playing Daggerfall), the arm soon begins to hurt. And not only while I am mousing – until it heals itself, even typing causes some pain.

No longer completely stupid to such things, I spaced the work out, stretched, and took breaks. Today I also slept away the entire evening from before sunset to midnight, which also helps a good deal. I can still feel the pain, but I can live with this level of it. This particular job is almost finished anyway. I will probably add a few more lines tomorrow, and that’s it.

And of course, at home I have Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11. I can only speak a few minutes at a time, since my voice is also damaged permanently. (The joys of growing old!) But if I can speak a few minutes and type a few minutes, and then do something else for a while, I can repeat this until I have written what I wanted.

Seriously, people: If you are able to speak something reasonably close to standard English, and have your own computer, and don’t live in abject poverty, get a quality microphone and Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11. It is ridiculously good, and it gets better every day you use it. I admit that I find it hard to use for some types of writing, because I have spent two generations of human lifetime thinking with my fingers. But for the 99.99% of humans who talk habitually anyway, this thing is like science fiction. Seriously, people, it’s like something out of Star Trek.

Check some of the demonstrations available online, for instance on YouTube. It really works like that. They’re not faking it. I still have some problems with my Norwegian accent, which is not one of those supported. But the program keeps adjusting, every time I use it it gets a little better. And so do I, probably. I don’t use it regularly, but when my wrist acts up, I remember it again, and become impressed all over again.

It is awesome to live in the Age of Wonders. Here’s an unrelated quote but with the same perspective from my friend Tsaiko:
“Who cares about flying cars?
The future is technology that lets me hold 1500 books in my hands. I HAVE A KINDLE.”

(Actually, I don’t have a Kindle myself, as I prefer to read my books on a high-resolution smartphone. But that does nothing to reduce my awe that I was really allowed to live to see an age where everyday items are virtually indistinguishable from magic.)