I heard there was a secret chord that Bana played and it pleased the Lord

Jan. 23rd, 2005 at 9:27 AM

A funny story:

Somehow the Microsoft Speech API server got turned on here on Earrame, my ThinkPad T21 (Pentium III-800). What's more, the interface to Internet Explorer and Outlook Express was also activated. The thing is, all that would normally appear are things I'm saying to people on the phone, to my grandmother, etc.

"... ... no yes yeah okay ... sure ..."

So now there are random words appearing in my "compose new message" windows and the edit boxes of Hotmail as if typed by a ghostly hand. For the record, I did not think my notebook had been possessed, but I did think it had been hacked. I started cudgelling my brain and thinking about various exploits I should be checking about with

darana. At one point I started inquiring the hacker what he or she had done. "Keep 'em talking."

Lovebird in a mirror, anyone?

Finally I noticed some words that looked just like the ones that Leonard Cohen was singing...
I'd like to say this is what clued me in, but it was actually IE hanging, whereupon I went to kill the process and noticed sapisvr.exe taking up a lot of CPU...

--
Banazir

Current Mood: embarrassed
Current Music:Alanis Morissette - Eight Easy Steps

Comments

( 8 comments — Leave a comment )

maegwen

Jan. 23rd, 2005 05:07 pm (UTC)

Everyone else is too afraid to answer. :)

I seriously have no idea what you are talking about, but it sounds spooky.

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banazir

Jan. 23rd, 2005 05:25 pm (UTC)

Speech recognition in Windows

SAPISVR is a speech recognition program that lets you control your web browser by voice instead of typing. I don't think it's intended for dictation (there are other packages such as IBM ViaVoice, Dragon Dictate/NaturallySpeaking, and Kurzweil for that), but I'm pretty sure that's why words have been appearing on my screen as if it were a ouija board.

I'm still not sure how to turn it off, though.

Of course, it might really be a ghost, in which case I'll be sure and thank J. J. Abrams. :-P

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Banazir

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maegwen

Jan. 23rd, 2005 05:31 pm (UTC)

Re: Speech recognition in Windows

Interesting! I wish I could chat by voice and save myself the carpal tunnel pain.

Or maybe it's Rousseau the french woman. It isn't lyrics to Bobby Darin songs, is it?

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banazir

Jan. 23rd, 2005 05:36 pm (UTC)

Sayid says

No, but it keeps doing Google searches for "Iraqi republican guard", "boar recipes", and "extra creamy peanut butter"...

--
Banazir

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borgseawolf

Jan. 23rd, 2005 05:41 pm (UTC)

Re: Sayid says

New Opera 8.0 has voice recognition built-in. It's quite fun.

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banazir

Jan. 23rd, 2005 07:40 pm (UTC)

Opera 8

Thanks. I'll check it out later, but it's unlikely that anything's going to make me switch from Mozilla Firefox for quite a long time to come.

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Banazir

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