Comments for Tectonic Pate

Comment on Project Canvas will use multicast, but content providers to lose out by Janay Puleo

Janay Puleo — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 18:54:25 +0000

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Comment on A Life Revealed – National Geographic Magazine by kelly a

kelly a — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 03:55:46 +0000

you may want to check steve mccurry’s site.. he’s responsible for that image.

Comment on How important is open source for international development? by Cueball

Cueball — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 14:22:33 +0000

Dude – long time no speak. How’s South America treating you. Loved that doc – I spent a bit of time with the guys behind RepRap in the UK when I was living in Bath. 3D printing is definitely coming of age.

Comment on How important is open source for international development? by ob1canoobie

ob1canoobie — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:14:32 +0000

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/arduino/

Open source is king – you may have heard of this, but still well worth a watch. Currently living in a developing country, Nicaragua, I can say that none of this accessable and certainly not by post…. In the future, with a sea change in infrastructure reliability (eg. less power cuts) I can see a real potential for growing enthusiasm in the mighty world of open source. Until then most people will probably remain drunk…. ‘cos it’s easier.

Cheers, Owen

(p.s. not read the pdf’s as 80 pages was slightly more than I felt I had time for! But I’m interested in the topic. Keep up the good work Adam!)

Comment on Valentine’s Day 1982 by Dozer

Dozer — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:09:03 +0000

It’s a great video. Have you seen the Literal version though?

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xakyg5_total-eclipse-of-the-heart-literal_music

Comment on The open source journalist’s toolkit pt3: Transcription software by Dozer

Dozer — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 22:06:05 +0000

I’ve spent an hour or so trying to find open-source speech-recognition/auto-transcription software to produce a rough draft I can then correct using old-fashioned transcription. Doesn’t seem to exist – there’s something called CSM Sphinx but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to install it. But this program seems to be good enough to make ‘old-fashioned’ transcription OK – before, I was just using ordinary media players, which don’t do a very good job. Thanks!

Comment on The open source journalist’s toolkit pt3: Transcription software by Cueball

Cueball — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:32:59 +0000

Hi Shena,

I’m afraid this is old fashioned transcription – you listen to the recording in small sections and type what you hear. It’s the only reliable method as far as journalism is concerned.

In terms of voice recognition software, which does the transcription for you and I think is what you mean, I haven’t got a lot of experience. Although I am quite impressed with the free Dragon Dictation app on the iPhone, which is passable for making notes. I’m not sure there’s any free desktop software I’d recommend I’m afraid.

You don’t need a footpedal to use ExpressScribe though – it just supports them if you’ve grown up using one. Personally I get on fine with the keyboard shortcuts.

Hope that helps!

Adam

Comment on The open source journalist’s toolkit pt3: Transcription software by Shena

Shena — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 10:29:12 +0000

Hi Adam, I found your comments really helpful. I understand that transcription software generally trains itself around 1 voice, but I’m assuming when you say ‘interview’ you have 2 voices on your audio file. Please clarify whether ExpressScribe can handle 2 voices, and whether a foot pedal is essential. I’m a student researcher and wondering if this could help me. Thanks,

Shena

Comment on Machaworks by Cueball

Cueball — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 11:46:19 +0000

No – they use two different types of connection. In Macha itself, there’s a C-band satellite link that provide 512Mbps down and 256Mbps up, but in the six village projects access is via Ku-band links that can offer 256Mbps down and 128Mbps up. It’s really not broadband…

Elton does most of his work night, apparently, since there’s not so much traffic on the network. I love this tweet from Machaworks’ founder, Gertjam van Stam.

It’s worth pointing out, though, that where mobile internet is available over the cell network in Zambia, it’s limited to a very unreliable GPRS or Edge connection, with 3G only just appearing in Lusaka and some of Copperbelt (afaik) in the last few months. By comparison to what you can get on your phone there, 256Mbps is high speed!

Comment on Machaworks by Dubai

Dubai — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 11:36:05 +0000

Hi Adam,

Is the 256Mbps quoted in the Guardian article on Machaworks a mistake?

Thanks