how about dictating to a human?

And if they missed? Or if the platform folded space just before impact? Earth is on that very same trajectory.

Ryk,

I agree with Wayne on the 'actual human' vs. 'software' dictation... Long time IT guy here as well. I've never ran across someone who's successfully using dictation software such as dragon or others. I would just use an actual human being.

I also felt that the KKV usage in EP 12 should've worked since they had multiple KKVs and launcher/recovery vehicles... I did realize that launching one at the platform's rear was problematic due to potential for smacking Earth and all, but I thought there would likely be a way to launch multiple KKVs at once - anticipating potential location ranges of the platform. Obviously involving the karuzara base in the battle platform's demise was more climactic... I'm guessing that you might have a way it could work in mind, but are saving it for some future battle. Eventually, Anti-Matter Jump-Missiles would kill a Battle Platform.

Some sort of tag team KKV configuration could also work. One to knock a Jung ship out of warp, and the follow on KKV for the 'kill'. Bygones...

Anyhow, good luck with Episode 13. Can't wait to read it. I recently stumbled across your series/work about a month ago, and have rapidly burned through all available episodes.

On the topic of dictation, I deployed it a few years back to success for around 40 physicians. There are four clear key concepts that make it or break it.

1) Get the best. Dragon nuance for healthcare was what we used.
2) Train it. It's a pain in the ass for the first three months or so because the doctors would dictate and then go back by hand and retype the errors. Dragon will not learn from that. If you properly go back and say "highlight destinies, replace with destiny capital D apostrophe s" it will figure out that when you say "Destinys" that you in fact do not mean "destinies".
3) Live it. Dictate everything. We started small with the physicians. First just dictate your email. Second, start dictating your notes into the EMR charting pages. Lastly, start dictating your letters to patients, referring offices, and colleagues.
4) Any dictation that will be externally facing gets reviewed. During the transition we had a number of docs not training their systems very well. This lead to fun sentences like "patient died (should be thrived) after stabilization post myocardial infarction" or "responding to treatment in hell (should be very well)". By placing a review after each dictation accuracy become less important, but still very relevant. I suppose this is also why several authors use beta readers to find these mistakes... if you're ever in need I've beta read for a NYT bestseller. 😉

It took about six months for this to really take hold, but it was a complete game changer for the company. No more busted dictaphone tapes, no more corrupted dictaphone memory cards, less overhead for transcription services. Costs down, productivity up. Win, win.

Wayne: I had thought of trailing the battle platform with the kkv, but I figured that since they only had a limited number, and they had no way of knowing if the platform would ever come out of ftl prior to arriving in Sol (at which point they would probably just raise shields immediately) I decided against that plan. In addition, the top speed of the KKVs is only 5c, which means they couldn't keep pace with the platform. That means the trailing shot would only work if you knew when they were going to come out of FTL.

Justin: At the start of book 13, I began dictating with Dragon 13 Premium. While it didn't do too bad, it too heavily influenced my writing and I had to abandon it for now. (As well as write the first three chapters.) The biggest problem with it was that it was too slow to get sentences on the screen, so either I was waiting for it to catch up, or I was just blabbing away hoping I got it right. (Which really showed in the writing.) And I'm running a really fast machine with very little running in the background! I'll probably try it again, perhaps on a dedicated machine running stripped down version of Win7, when I have more time to devote to training it properly. For now, I'm stuck typing, which means I have to take frequent breaks for my hands and back.

I've recently hired my nephew's wife as my assistant. I may try dictating to recording and seeing if she can transcribe it properly.

Hope you gave your assistant a list of the more complicated spellings for thinks like the Zarurara and the Ghatrazak. 🙂

Ryk say's..... I’ve recently hired my nephew’s wife as my assistant. I may try dictating to recording and seeing if she can transcribe it properly.

I was going to suggest that you try to find a retired court reporter or two. They can really hammer out words. But then they might be way not so "cost effective" that why I suggested "retired".

Steve Gibson of Spinrite fame uses a human gal that is very good to transcribe his weekly podcast. details at GRC.com/SN (Security Now! podcast). I'm sure she would work well, although not sure of the cost. She is already used to transcribing the technospeak of IT security...

Elaine is probably too booked for that. She is good though.

I tried dictating for the first 3 chapters of book 13, and according to my beta-readers and proofreaders, it made my writing suck. (I rambled on.) So I had to go back and rewrite most of it, putting me further behind than usual. Today, I'm starting the Pomodoro method, doing four 30 minute writing periods, with 15 minute breaks in between to get off my butt, stretch my legs, and think about the next scene. I'll do one set of four in the morning, and one set in the afternoon. If I'm behind in my word count for the day, I can do a couple sets in the evening after dinner. Hopefully, this will keep the back and hand pain at bay.

I may try again after episode 15, when I take a few months off to flesh-up the outline for the part two.

I'm also getting up at 0700 to walk and stretch each morning, to fight writer's butt.