Daliman
07-30-2005, 03:12 AM
Cool article that details a bit of some of the things he is doing to help a recently injured friend;
"In February of this year one of my best friends (in fact he was the best man at my wedding) was in a serious snowboarding accident. The crash resulted in a "C4 incomplete" spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic. He has some limited gross movement in his arms and we remain hopeful that he will recover much more in time, but for now his physical abilities are severely limited.
Until now I had chosen not to write about this, probably because I was intimidated by the enormity of it all. I'm not a skilled enough writer to convey how I felt the first time I saw him after the accident. We've been friends for nearly twenty years and he's always been one of the most physical people I know: he was always outside, always doing something real. In contrast to me, he sensibly shunned computers and television in favor of actual people and actual activities, and he has built a huge circle of loyal friends with his big heart and infectious personality. If I thought things happened for a reason I'd be mystified as to what possible reason there could be for this. But I don't and I don't think he does either: there is no reason.
Kathleen and Ivy and I just spent a little over a week staying with him and his girlfriend at their home in santa cruz. It is impossible to appreciate how difficult life is for both of them until you live with them for a while. For them, nothing can be taken for granted any more: nothing.
What's most remarkable about it all has been his attitude since the accident. I do not know how a typical person behaves after experiencing such trauma but I'm 100% sure I could not muster the light-heartedness and optimism he has displayed throughout. The opportunity to feel self-pity is so huge as to be immeasurable but I have never heard him talk that way, not once. He still finds a way to watch out for everyone else's well-being. It's the biggest character test I've ever personally witnessed and I am very proud to know someone who is passing with such flying colors.
I spent much of our time there trying to create an easy-to-use fully voice-operated computing environment. I accomplished a lot but there is much left to do so we're returning as soon as we can schedule it. I intend to document/package all the work to make this a little easier for the next guy. Here are a few of the central components.
Windows XP: Sigh. I went down that road with much regret, but in a narrow domain like this it makes life way too hard to start anywhere else. In this case I had to check my OS preferences at the door of practicality.
Dragon Naturallyspeaking: There are no other real contenders for the base voice recognition facilities.
Natlink/Vocola: This is an extension to naturallyspeaking that lets you map voice commands into python. It's vastly superior to the built-in extension mechanism.
I looked at opera for web browsing because it lists voice recognition as a central feature, but I wasn't convinced it'd improve on firefox and I much prefer the path of open source where possible. So in went firefox and thunderbird, but a whole world of new UI issues turn up when you try to cut dependencies on the mouse. He can use a mouse a little bit (and I'm exploring specialized pointers that should be easier yet) but I don't want anything to require the mouse if I can help it. Of course I can't do much about the loathsome web sites that embed all their content in flash.
There were a few extensions I was glad to find along the way.
Hit-a-Hint: When a user-defined key is pressed it overlays numbered circles on all a page's hyperlinks. So I mapped the word "numbers" to the key, and now he can say "number, thirty-seven, enter" and go to the 37th link on the page.
Keyconfig: It turns out thunderbird lacks keyboard shortcuts for a variety of fundamental actions, and without a keyboard shortcut controlling an application is slow and fragile. This extension enables mapping most any feature you might want.
In addition to web and email, I created him a livejournal and set him up with a client. Adding to the journal is as simple as "open journal, <speak content>, post entry." He has so many stories about life since the accident that merit telling, and we both think his articulating them will be therapeutic. Unfortunately the voice recognition still isn't working as smoothly as I'd like so he may not start using the journal regularly until I can get back to santa cruz and make further progress.
I used this CD ripping service to digitalize his music and set itunes up, but I was reminded again how much apple software blows on windows (and vice versa.) There must be a better choice for music management and playback but I'm out of touch with the windows scene.
I have a million ideas for other ways to apply technology to help him so this is going to be a long-term project, but what I'd give to be able to help him get his body back. Internally, I am a very selfishly wired person: it generally requires a mental effort for me to go out of my way to help someone else. Not this time."
"In February of this year one of my best friends (in fact he was the best man at my wedding) was in a serious snowboarding accident. The crash resulted in a "C4 incomplete" spinal cord injury that left him a quadriplegic. He has some limited gross movement in his arms and we remain hopeful that he will recover much more in time, but for now his physical abilities are severely limited.
Until now I had chosen not to write about this, probably because I was intimidated by the enormity of it all. I'm not a skilled enough writer to convey how I felt the first time I saw him after the accident. We've been friends for nearly twenty years and he's always been one of the most physical people I know: he was always outside, always doing something real. In contrast to me, he sensibly shunned computers and television in favor of actual people and actual activities, and he has built a huge circle of loyal friends with his big heart and infectious personality. If I thought things happened for a reason I'd be mystified as to what possible reason there could be for this. But I don't and I don't think he does either: there is no reason.
Kathleen and Ivy and I just spent a little over a week staying with him and his girlfriend at their home in santa cruz. It is impossible to appreciate how difficult life is for both of them until you live with them for a while. For them, nothing can be taken for granted any more: nothing.
What's most remarkable about it all has been his attitude since the accident. I do not know how a typical person behaves after experiencing such trauma but I'm 100% sure I could not muster the light-heartedness and optimism he has displayed throughout. The opportunity to feel self-pity is so huge as to be immeasurable but I have never heard him talk that way, not once. He still finds a way to watch out for everyone else's well-being. It's the biggest character test I've ever personally witnessed and I am very proud to know someone who is passing with such flying colors.
I spent much of our time there trying to create an easy-to-use fully voice-operated computing environment. I accomplished a lot but there is much left to do so we're returning as soon as we can schedule it. I intend to document/package all the work to make this a little easier for the next guy. Here are a few of the central components.
Windows XP: Sigh. I went down that road with much regret, but in a narrow domain like this it makes life way too hard to start anywhere else. In this case I had to check my OS preferences at the door of practicality.
Dragon Naturallyspeaking: There are no other real contenders for the base voice recognition facilities.
Natlink/Vocola: This is an extension to naturallyspeaking that lets you map voice commands into python. It's vastly superior to the built-in extension mechanism.
I looked at opera for web browsing because it lists voice recognition as a central feature, but I wasn't convinced it'd improve on firefox and I much prefer the path of open source where possible. So in went firefox and thunderbird, but a whole world of new UI issues turn up when you try to cut dependencies on the mouse. He can use a mouse a little bit (and I'm exploring specialized pointers that should be easier yet) but I don't want anything to require the mouse if I can help it. Of course I can't do much about the loathsome web sites that embed all their content in flash.
There were a few extensions I was glad to find along the way.
Hit-a-Hint: When a user-defined key is pressed it overlays numbered circles on all a page's hyperlinks. So I mapped the word "numbers" to the key, and now he can say "number, thirty-seven, enter" and go to the 37th link on the page.
Keyconfig: It turns out thunderbird lacks keyboard shortcuts for a variety of fundamental actions, and without a keyboard shortcut controlling an application is slow and fragile. This extension enables mapping most any feature you might want.
In addition to web and email, I created him a livejournal and set him up with a client. Adding to the journal is as simple as "open journal, <speak content>, post entry." He has so many stories about life since the accident that merit telling, and we both think his articulating them will be therapeutic. Unfortunately the voice recognition still isn't working as smoothly as I'd like so he may not start using the journal regularly until I can get back to santa cruz and make further progress.
I used this CD ripping service to digitalize his music and set itunes up, but I was reminded again how much apple software blows on windows (and vice versa.) There must be a better choice for music management and playback but I'm out of touch with the windows scene.
I have a million ideas for other ways to apply technology to help him so this is going to be a long-term project, but what I'd give to be able to help him get his body back. Internally, I am a very selfishly wired person: it generally requires a mental effort for me to go out of my way to help someone else. Not this time."