Sick and (Apparently Not) Sicker
Sep. 2nd, 2021 01:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogI often use the dictation function on my phone when I need to be hands-free, or when it's just quicker than typing. I'd use it a lot more except for Siri's many quirks. For one thing, any word I say that's remotely close to a contact's name, she'll translate it as that name. (And I've got almost 800 contacts in there, at least a third of them ephemeral enough that I should probably delete them.) She could also use a crash course in grammar, and her track record with things like "comma," "period" and especially "dash" is sketchy.
Until today, I'd never used the equivalent function on my laptop or even turned it on, but circumstances required it. This is the first post I ever dictated using her evil twin Cortana:
So. Eleanor has been off work since Monday after diagnosing extreme arthritis, and probable carpal tunnel, in one of her hands. Among the many adjustments she's had to make at home, I've been showing her how to dictate rather than type on her phone. She then asked if her laptop has a similar function.
I have never used it, but what do you know, it does! And apparently Cortana understands my speech better than Siri does, as shown by this post, which is so far only had one stupid mistake in it.
It takes some homework to get it set up Kayla dash two mistakes, Cortana dash. And on her older slower machine, it's taking longer to initialize, but I think this will help.
It has! And it finally did initialize on hers (or at least started to) after a reboot. It's not a well publicized function, buried in accessibility features, but holding down the Windows key and the letter H (probably for handicapped?)-
-yeah, those two (the left one may look a little different on older Windows keyboards) will either activate it if it's been enabled, or give you the settings link to activate it.
She'll be using it a lot more until she figures out whether this hand thing will heal, but it's going to be more likely that people will think we're talking to ourselves;)
----
And occasionally cursing.
I got a call from the Rochester office just before 8 last night. Work calls that late are going to make you either very angry or very worried, or both. This one fell straight into worry: a coworker there had tested positive for COVID, and most people were now working remotely until her quarantine is over. Just wanted to let you know and all.
Welp. The good news is, I had last seen said coworker two weeks earlier, very briefly and outside social distancing limits except for perhaps a second or two. The only time after that I was even in that office was last Friday, when the entire remainder of the staff, including Patient Zero, was out at an amusement park.
Never have I been so happy to not have been amused.
I pondered the situation after the call. I'm fully vaccinated, have no symptoms, and had three temperature checks in and out of courthouses earlier yesterday (all my usual Zombie-like 97F). Still, my head filled with whatifs, and I figured the safest-not-sorry step would be to get a test this morning. My "neighborhood CVS" refers all COVID calls to a call center someplace, which ultimately confirmed they were booked all day and tomorrow as well. Then I remembered there was a pop-up testing site in an abandoned Aston Martin car showroom about two miles from here. No line, walk-ins welcome, not even an insurance card required. They weren't the same operators I'd seen before, and this one had just opened this morning.
I scanned the QR on the paper form, filled it out on my phone, took yet another wonky license photo, and then re-enacted the Cheech and Chong sketch Up His Nose- once for the rapid, a second for the PCR that goes to the Lab Boys.
Them: Do you want to wait five minutes or get an email with the results?
Me: Does a bear shit in the woods in five minutes?
I twiddled, muddled, even mulled until the magic word came back:
NEGATIVE.
I still have to wait until the (more reliable) PCR comes back before I will rest with complete ease, but it was quite a relief all the same. I've told co-workers and my angels from last Friday about it, and nobody has flipped out over it, at least not yet. One thing they did tell me at the site? Almost all of their positive results so far have come from people who, like me, had been vaccinated. Which makes the red half of this country, and its ignorance and intransigence, even more inexcusable.
And I just told Cortana that I said so .
Until today, I'd never used the equivalent function on my laptop or even turned it on, but circumstances required it. This is the first post I ever dictated using her evil twin Cortana:
So. Eleanor has been off work since Monday after diagnosing extreme arthritis, and probable carpal tunnel, in one of her hands. Among the many adjustments she's had to make at home, I've been showing her how to dictate rather than type on her phone. She then asked if her laptop has a similar function.
I have never used it, but what do you know, it does! And apparently Cortana understands my speech better than Siri does, as shown by this post, which is so far only had one stupid mistake in it.
It takes some homework to get it set up Kayla dash two mistakes, Cortana dash. And on her older slower machine, it's taking longer to initialize, but I think this will help.
It has! And it finally did initialize on hers (or at least started to) after a reboot. It's not a well publicized function, buried in accessibility features, but holding down the Windows key and the letter H (probably for handicapped?)-
-yeah, those two (the left one may look a little different on older Windows keyboards) will either activate it if it's been enabled, or give you the settings link to activate it.
She'll be using it a lot more until she figures out whether this hand thing will heal, but it's going to be more likely that people will think we're talking to ourselves;)
----
And occasionally cursing.
I got a call from the Rochester office just before 8 last night. Work calls that late are going to make you either very angry or very worried, or both. This one fell straight into worry: a coworker there had tested positive for COVID, and most people were now working remotely until her quarantine is over. Just wanted to let you know and all.
Welp. The good news is, I had last seen said coworker two weeks earlier, very briefly and outside social distancing limits except for perhaps a second or two. The only time after that I was even in that office was last Friday, when the entire remainder of the staff, including Patient Zero, was out at an amusement park.
Never have I been so happy to not have been amused.
I pondered the situation after the call. I'm fully vaccinated, have no symptoms, and had three temperature checks in and out of courthouses earlier yesterday (all my usual Zombie-like 97F). Still, my head filled with whatifs, and I figured the safest-not-sorry step would be to get a test this morning. My "neighborhood CVS" refers all COVID calls to a call center someplace, which ultimately confirmed they were booked all day and tomorrow as well. Then I remembered there was a pop-up testing site in an abandoned Aston Martin car showroom about two miles from here. No line, walk-ins welcome, not even an insurance card required. They weren't the same operators I'd seen before, and this one had just opened this morning.
I scanned the QR on the paper form, filled it out on my phone, took yet another wonky license photo, and then re-enacted the Cheech and Chong sketch Up His Nose- once for the rapid, a second for the PCR that goes to the Lab Boys.
Them: Do you want to wait five minutes or get an email with the results?
Me: Does a bear shit in the woods in five minutes?
I twiddled, muddled, even mulled until the magic word came back:
NEGATIVE.
I still have to wait until the (more reliable) PCR comes back before I will rest with complete ease, but it was quite a relief all the same. I've told co-workers and my angels from last Friday about it, and nobody has flipped out over it, at least not yet. One thing they did tell me at the site? Almost all of their positive results so far have come from people who, like me, had been vaccinated. Which makes the red half of this country, and its ignorance and intransigence, even more inexcusable.
And I just told Cortana that I said so .