US Federal Holidays

I could not remember if we have observed the holidays before Thanksgiving Day.   Thanksgiving Day is an annual tradition celebrated on the fourth day of November in the United States.  It is the time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude.  Holidays in the US means no work load for us.

But today is not the only time to take the opportunity to show our gratitude.  Immensely, every day is a chance – a chance to be aware and be thankful of the sweetness of life and the presence of God deep in our hearts.

It’s the time to pull and push the furniture and feel the warmness of the soil under a pouring rain. Hope I’ll not get cold with this…

Just the other day Google announced its intentions to automatically generate closed caption files on a select group of YouTube files.  The story quickly made it to the NY Times and all over the blogosphere, as it rightfully should.  The idea is to eventually rollout the capability across YouTube for all users to test.  With 20 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute, that’s a lot of text being created!

At its core, this is a brilliant move by Google to improve YouTube search (and advertising) capabilities.  But Google’s announcement, largely because it’s Google, also puts the accessibility issue in front of the entire country for a change.  Captions are mandated for much of television, but they are only beginning to get some attention on the internet, well until now.  Representative Ed Markey, the same Congressman who made the original push for closed captioning on television, introduced H.R. 3101, the Twenty-first Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009, during this session of Congress, and it currently has 19 co-sponsors.  This is actually the second attempt at getting a bill passed that would mandate an improved user experience for the hearing impaired.

Thanks to one of the most talked about technology companies of our time, closed captioning is getting attention all over the internet.  Anyone who works with online video is now paying attention to closed captioning.  Not only are we empowering the hearing impaired, but in a virtual world that seems to be driven by search and discovery, video can now be made more “accessible” than ever.

So for a business that is centered on providing high quality, time synchronized transcripts, what does this announcement mean?

Well, it could mean a lot of things.  First, let’s look into this new Google service.  Google will deploy the same technology that powers Google Voice across YouTube to enable the creation of text.  This means they will be using automatic speech recognition (ASR) to create the caption files.  Using ASR on audio and video is not a new concept, but it’s new at this scale.  We’ve commented on our experiences with ASR capbilities in the past.  In fact, we’ve even played with the very engine that will be front and center for the YouTube initiative.

We’ve spoken with many people who have tested ASR solutions.  Usually, if they are talking to us, they weren’t satisfied!  The truth of the matter is that ASR will be good enough for some people, and it won’t be good enough for others.  80% accuracy (at it’s best and in studio quality recording conditions) leaves a lot to be desired.  In fact, Google even admits that results can be somewhat amusing when they’re off.  On the search front, the most critical keywords tend to be the most unique and, therefore, least common to be recognized accurately.  Google’s announcement does not change that, it just makes an ASR solution easier to use and free to consume.  In many cases, Google has likely provided a medium for people who may never have put captions on their video with the ability to do so with very little effort.  Google has also made the search benefits of captions glaringly obvious.

Ultimately, the organizations that require (or believe in) high quality output for captions and search will be willing to pay for cleaned up text.  There are significant benefits to the high-quality approach, whether it be accurate search results or truly legible transcripts.  Branding is also a critical issue for many organizations who add a text component to their video offering.

We at 3Play Media will continue building high quality solutions that make multimedia more accessible for everyone.  More people than ever are aware of the benefits of captions and time-synchronized transcripts now.  We have some new product launches on the way that will build off these very benefits, and we can’t wait to show the world how their online video experience can be changed forever.

I’m doing 6 or 7 minutes of typing to 1 minute of audio on this interview. I wouldn’t have thought there’d be such a difference! This interview, 83 minutes long, is going to have almost twice as many words, transcribed, as the previous 70-minute interview.

In grad school (take 1) I studied Classical Greek for a while, audited a couple semesters’ courses. A peculiarity of Greek (dunno if this persists in the modern) is the inclusion of conjunctions, which we would translate roughly as “and,” “but” or “so,” at the beginning of most or all sentences following the first in a paragraph – “never begin a sentence with ‘and’ or ‘but!’” quoth the teacher of hackneyed English. The function, I suppose, is to conjoin related sentences. I always thought this was a bit odd and unnecessary, but in transcribing both interviews I find that people tend to do this naturally while speaking. Neat.

Nerd heaven: after midnight on Friday, and I’ve just spent the past several hours transcribing my latest research interview, drinking and naked in bed. Doing research on kink for credit is absolute joy, one part subversive and one part dutiful; somehow, it works.

Things I’m noticing in this interview:

• I’m speaking very different on this recording, and I wonder if it’s because on the personality of the interviewee, the setting, or the fact that it’s a guy.
• I’m a high-talker at the beginning of my sentences. When I make a statement, it sounds like a ski-jump: starting really high and slow, gradually picking up speed and lowering in tone, and soaring with babble. Sometimes I land it, sometimes I don’t. All this in spite of my resolution to speak more concisely and to eliminate irritating and embarrassing idiosyncrasies from my speech.
• In the previous interview as well as this one, if you look at speed and deliberate articulation, people seem to speak either peaks or valleys: either we start slowly, then speak quickly and flightily, then finish the sentence methodically; or, we start in a rush, plod through the middle, and hurry out of the sentence.

I really enjoy both the interviews (especially being as open-ended as they are at this stage in the research) and the close inspection of the transcription. It makes me want to do a Ph.D, again. My supervisor and I have been talking about spending next semester preparing the research for publication and/or conference presentation, too.

Anyway, enough of that, and off to bed.

An example of an autocaptioned YouTube video. It IS time.

I wrote about advances in captioning technology and how this could make online video exponentially more useful almost a year ago.  Captions are obvoiusly very important for people with hearing impairments but can also be useful for students studying a language.

At the time, work was being done on automating the process because it takes several hours to transcribe the text and then synchronize it to each hour of video.  Manually captioning all of the video that exists online or even that is currently being created is simply not possible.  What a difference a year makes.

YouTube recently announced the addition of an automatic captions feature.  This announcement picked up by Mashable and it echoed through the Twittersphere.  My first reaction was, “Finally!”  Followed by the question, “I wonder how accurate it is.”

Ken Petri, Program Director for the Ohio State Web Accessibility Center, addressed these concerns in an email to the OSU Exploring Learning Technologies community:

If you have ever seen the results from Google Voice’s automatic transcription you know they are usually not perfect. For an educational context, a perfect or close to perfect transcript is usually necessary. This and the fact that most of you will not have access to the automated transcription feature in YouTube means that, while it is an exciting announcement, it is not a panacea.

Fortunately, you can opt to upload your own transcript and have YouTube auto-align it to your video.  If the video is scripted (as opposed to improvised) it can be easy to obtain a trascript.  Transcribing a video can take a long, long time, but automating one step in the process is helpful.

In general, every step that is automated will increase speed and efficiency while lowering costs, but will also introduce inaccuracies.  As each step in improved, we will get closer and closer to the goal of captioning every online video.

It never ceases to amaze me when I hear from folks who say they can’t find decent help online.

 When I ask what they are offering in terms of compensation, invariably they will quote some ridiculously low price… a price that no one in North America could live on, not even as a part-time supplement. They go to places like Elance and Guru and other job sites and try to find someone who will work for less than $5 per hour and then lament that “Good help is hard to find.” Excuse me?

I recently put out some feelers on Elance for my own transcription business. I offered what I felt was a decent wage. I had to cut off the bidding at more than 60 candidates, yet I have a feeling that my request could have gone on for days. Why? Because I was offering a decent wage for a newbie. I was offering a good starting wage for someone wanting to break into the general transcription business AND I was attracting the best of the best. As a side note, each of those candidates will be reviewed and responded to by the end of this weekend.

Isn’t the best of the best what you would want for your business at the end of the day? Does scrimping and saving when it comes to subcontractors really make sense in the long run?

It’s the old ‘walk a mile in my shoes’ thing. Would YOU work for you for the rates you are offering? If so, I doubt you would feel very good about yourself or the services you were offering. Are those the types of people you want on your team?

Another irony as I posted my starting subcontractor rates is that I had very few offshore candidates offering to work for me for 50, 40 or 30 cents per hour. I wonder why. Could it be because I also posted my requirements in no uncertain terms and what I absolutely needed to have at a minimum before I could even look at a person as a candidate?

Could it be apparent that I was totally clear about what my business needed and that those unqualified need not apply? Yes, I think so.

I’m putting my feet up this weekend and sifting through the serious bidders, those with real qualifications… I am going to savor them, get to know each of their personalities, and explore more about them. Would I have received the same caliber of candidates if I had offered a ridiculously low price? Of course not!

Just something to think about.

An 8-1/2 by 11 inch page bears an ad looking for bloggers that must be interested in finance, , business, technology, and other current issues in US, this was posted in our store near the university.

I do not consider myself as an expert blogger and I am not intending to be a part of blogsphere or blogland, but once asked why I need to maintain a site for a blog.  Hive of words, need to do something while I am resting from listening to Hispanic accents audio materials or the so-called southern accents.  It helps me remember things like last Saturday, I was beating the turn around time, the supposedly 2 pm TAT but finished almost after 4 hours covering for a fellow MT who had a real life doctor’s appointment.

Yesterday, my destination was ACE hardware to purchase 6 doorknobs.  I picked the Sobo brand and while I was paying, I asked the cashier “hindi kaya mapasubo ako nito?” but with the budget given, I had to stick with this brand though I was eyeing for the faultless knobs, kaso doble ang price.

As a resident of internet circle in which my job requires me to be online while I’m at work (an offline status will make editors and bosses to think there is something wrong with the connection, otherwise).  I also serve as a channel for messages from and to relatives outside the country, leaving me not to make some of my friendster’s album in private for them to see.  An uncle who came home after 33 years from US requested me to make it public as he always view it on his plasma TV connected to his computer.

*N days after.

I want use this post to explain how I do my transcriptions at www.outsourcetranscriptionservices.com and why the way I do them allows me to stand out from the crowd of other transcription services.  There is nothing wrong with simply transcribing what you hear.  Rule number one is to type what you hear and although that is satisfactory for most people, there is still that extra touch that is often left out.

I truly focus on becoming a trusted resource for all my clients by providing intelligent, edited, and researched transcripts, and by “learning” my client’s business to provide the best possible product.  How do I do this?  Because most of my clients are long-term and repeat clients, I am able to learn the industry specific terminology for their fields.  I take the time to Google unfamiliar terminology and I am able to draw on that knowledge base for not only one client, but for others whose fields may overlap.  This saves my clients from wasting both time and money on unnecessary editing.  With each successive transcript, there are fewer “new” words, thus fewer edits on the client end.

There are several ways to deliver audio and/or video to me for transcription.  You can use email, FTP, URL index page, or a file sharing service.  I have a drop box for ease of delivery, which is free for clients to upload to: http://dropbox.yousendit.com/tamarabentzur5612437

I am comfortable transcribing both audio and video.  I use Express Scribe for the majority of my audios, which are usually transcribed into Microsoft Word format, but I use Inqscribe for my videos or for transcripts that will be exported into plain text or HTML format.

My transcription experience includes working with multiple experts and authorities in the fields of:

• • Entertainment, Infomercials, and scripts (including burned in time stamp requirements)
  • Marketing, Marie Forleo, Marcia Hoeck
  • SEO or Search Engine Optimization, SEO Mentor
  • IT, Peepcode, Alt.NET
  • Emerging Communications, one of the most exciting is eComm USA as well as eComm Europe, Ideas Project.com
  • Social Media, thought leaders in this area, including Social Media Club
  • Doctoral Thesis
  • University Lectures, Prof. Andreas Weigend
  • Podcasts, Mommymuse, Stories of Survival
  • Webinars, Walking on Water.org
  • Case Studies, ACT Venture Partners
  • Author Book Notes

Although I do transcribe verbatim when requested, most of my clients prefer that I clean up their dialog, removing false starts and removing ums and ahs, to make the conversation flow more smoothly, which ensures better readability.  I strive to keep the speaker’s “voice” so it sounds correct but without sounding sterile.  Each speaker has their own style, their own special phrases, all of which make each speaker’s “voice” unique and “them”.  This is oftentimes difficult for foreign transcription services, whose employees may not have English as their mother tongue.

Upon request, I will format dialog using headings/subheadings, bullet points, numbered lists, or periodic time stamps.

My clients can rest assured that they will receive accurate transcripts because accents are never a problem. I have a great ear and have worked with English accents including:

• • Canadian
  • British
  • Scottish
  • Australian
  • South African
  • Latin American
  • French
  • Japanese

If there ever is uncertainty about what is said, due to audio quality, or accent, I time stamp that area in red to make it easier for my client to find and correct.

You may find transcriptions that are cheaper, but when you want high quality, great efficiency, and the comfort of building a relationship you can trust, you’ll never find better.  My clients are never just a number to me.  They know that even if my schedule is a bit full when they contact me, because we have built a trusted relationship, I will do my upmost to work them in to get their project back to them when they need it, if not beforehand.

Outsourcing transcription services  is a rapidly growing field.  There is always the option to farm out the work to the cheapest service provider you can find.  I am not one of those providers.  I pride myself in my professionalism, my enthusiasm, my competence, but most importantly in my ability to become a long-term part of your team.  I believe that having someone you can count on, especially in a pinch, is often worth its weight in gold.

by Gary Ewer, from “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” website:
__________

Whether you call it “having a tin ear” or “being tone deaf”, many musicians feel the great frustration of not being able to accurately label the sounds they’re hearing. It’s a sophisticated activity when you think about it: we’re essentially listening to the air vibrate, and then identifying what that was. But if those kind of listening skills are in short supply, is there any hope for you?

I teach aural skills at university, and I’ve changed my view on this over the years. While there is a window of opportunity that is wide open in childhood, slowly closing as we age, I believe that adult musicians can make great strides in training their ear, and I’ve seen it happen.

A big step toward improving your ear is to learn a bit of basic music theory. Even if it’s just the nuts and bolts of being able to name notes on a musical staff, and learning how to write out some simple scales, this knowledge will get you going in the right direction. It’s part of basic music literacy.

Beyond that, I strongly believe that transcribing music will strengthen your aural skills more than any other musical activity. Here’s what I get my own students to do: I give them sound files of different pieces: solos, duets, trios, and so on. I give them a month per song to write down what they’re hearing. I encourage them to sit at a piano, or with their guitar, and find the notes they hear. Most students find this frustrating at first, but then become surprised by how much they are learning.

This kind of transcription exercise is a bit like learning a language by speaking it. At first, you feel that you’re getting no where, and then – you realize that you’re getting better and better.

I like transcription exercises more than simple “identify the interval” or “identify the chord” exercises, because it presents real music in a musical context.

The older you are, the slower progress can be, but you mustn’t give up. I have seen people of all ages improve with these kinds of transcription exercises. If you are in your late teens or early twenties, the window of opportunity is definitely closing, but it is not closed, and you will be surprised by how much progress you can make. There are lots of sites that can play intervals and chords for you, and tell you if you’re getting close.

Singing is also a great ear trainer, especially singing that requires you to match other singers, like in a choir. And singing in choir is great because you can couple your singing training with your ability to sing what you are seeing printed on the music in front of you.

It is normal for ear training to be a long, slow process, even at the best of times. So be patient, and you will see improvement.

___________

Gary Ewer has written six songwriting e-books designed to get you writing the songs you’ve always known you could write. Read about those e-books here.

Fellow Transcribers,

Did I mention the importance of proofreading your work before you send it off to a client?

No matter how long the transcript is and no matter how careful you have been, even if it’s 50 pages…go back to the beginning and proofread your own work.

Read it objectively from start to finish, no matter how much you think you were so very careful. I know it’s boring and takes an extra five or 10 minutes, but the end product will be worth it. I guarantee that you will find at least one incident of ‘you’re’ when it should have been ‘your’, or ‘who’s’ instead of ‘whose’.

Why is this important?

With information products that are either posted on the web or sold to your customer’s clients, it’s very important. The transcript you have provided may even outlive you in terms of its longevity on the web. We all know that the search engines keep things forever!

Your client may get to the point where they themselves no longer proofread your work if it is always dead on. But what if you miss? You make your client look bad in the eyes of their clients AND you make yourself look bad in the eyes of your own client.

Consistent proofreading separates the amateur transcriptionists from the pros. A professional transcriptionist always, always proofreads their own work, no matter how confident they are that they typed the audio error-free. This includes checking website references for accuracy if you have put a live link in the transcript. Always check those URLs to make sure they work.

Believe me, by the time you have finished Page 50, you will have forgotten what was in Page 1, so you can look at it with fresh eyes when you take that extra five or 10 minutes to go over your transcript once again.

I am swamped with transcription work (I’d like to think) because I always do that final check just as a matter of course.

Because I am expanding my team, recently I posted what I think is a fair proposal on Elance to search for qualified transcriptionists. I can guarantee that the commitment to proofreading one’s work is going to be a huge factor as to whom I seriously consider. 

Just as a side note, I also need an excellent proofreader to edit my own stuff!

Karen

Naoogma ako sa mga nababasa kung status messages, nakakawara nin tungka halos gabos patungkol sa Biyernes 13.  There is nothing wrong with Friday the 13th, nagkataon lang si 3 hours na blackout.

“Bawal daa magkarigos pag Friday the 13th” – that is sooo manang.

Ito man sarong status sabi nya :

 “Brandon, I’ve got a message for you for the nursing board exam”.

Aanhin mo pa ang libro kung ang katabi mo ay scholar.

 Ito man saro, crave day nya daa pero mayong ice cream.  Siguro mayong pambakal ice cream…

Tapos igwa pa, Rock and roll na ta may kuryente na.. at least Parokya ni Edgar naman daa.

I appreciate all these things.  They help me keep awake.

[Click here for KTUU's video coverage of the speech]

“Thank you. Everyone who has a seat, take a seat. I want to thank General Troy for the introduction and for his extraordinary service. To Colonel Mark Camerer and your outstanding local leaders for welcoming me here to day. And I want to give a shout out to the United States Air Force band of the Pacific! Alright! I realize that your commander, General Atkins, couldn’t be here. I’m told that he got called down to Hawaii. That’s a tough assignment. I know a little something about Hawaii. Shaka brada, what’s up?

I grew up there, so, I hope that he’s getting as warm a welcome as I’m getting here. I want to thank your senior enlisted leaders; Command Chief Master Sergeant Robert Moore, Chief Master Sergeant Thom Baker, and Command Sergeant Major David Turnbull. Give them a big round of applause. And please give some applause to all the air men and soldiers up here. They look terrific.

It is wonderful to be here at one of America’s great air bases. I have to tell you, I’m also really excited because, I had, up until today, visited 49 states. So, this is officially my 50th state. (Applause followed by crowd member shouting “We love you Obama!”) I love you back. We also have a lot of folks from Fort Richardson. We’ve got folks from all across Alaskan Command: Air Force, Army, Navy, Coast Guard, United States Marine, Active Guard and reserve. We have our allies and friends from the Canadian Armed Forces. I see many spouses here today. And I want you to know  you are the backbone of our military families and we honor your service. And I’m thrilled to see the kids who are here today. Hey guys! Thank you! I know you’re proud of your mom and dads, but we’re all proud of you too.

You know, we’re here in America’s last frontier. Most of you are far from home, and I know your service is made a little easier by your unbelievable neighbors, so we want to thank your local and state leaders, Lt. Gov. Craig Cambpell, all the people of Anchorage and Alaska for their incredible support. And we’re also joined today by a leader who is fighting for Alaska in Washington and for you and all our men and women in uniform as members of the Armed Services Committee and Veteran’s Affairs Committee; Mark Begich is here, Senator Mark Begich is in the house. Stand up, Mark, so everyone can see you.

Now, today I’m on my way to Asia. My first visit there as President. The crews are out there refueling Air Force One. But I didn’t want to just pass through. Cause this is also, as I said, my first visit to Alaska and my first visit to Elmendorf. And I couldn’t come here without taking this opportunity to deliver a simple message; a message of thanks to you and your families. These have been days of tribute. Two days ago we gathered at Fort Hood and we honored 13 Americans taken from us; soldiers and care givers, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. We grieved with families who have endured unimaginable loss. And we found inspiration in the wounded. There spirits unbowed, and those that braved the bullets so that others might live. Yesterday we gathered at Arlington National Cemetery to salute proud veterans who served on foreign fields long ago and wounded warriors from today. And as citizens of a grateful nation we are humbled by such service. Today we gather here at Elmendorf and we see the same spirit. It’s the same spirit that I saw in the outstanding airmen and soldiers I met with a few moments ago. It’s the spirit that I see in all of you. It’s your sense of service; answering your country’s call, volunteering in a time of war, knowing that you could be sent into harms way. That’s a sense of responsibility on your part. The belief that the blessings we cherish as Americans are not gifts that we take for granted, they are freedoms that are earned. And it’s your sense of unity coming from every corner of the country; from every color, and every creed, and every faith, and every station to take care of each other. And to serve together, and to succeed together as Americans.

So I’m here to say Error: Break shortcode syntax invalid So I’m here to say to all of you; all of you who serve; all the families who are here; of all the privileges I have as President, I have no greater honor than serving as your commander in chief. [Applause break] And we have the finest fighting force the world has ever known and it’s because of you. Because we’ve got the finest personnel in the world. That’s our most precious resource. And by being here, all of you are joining a long line of service at Elmendorf. From the liberation of Pacific Islands during World War II, through a long cold war, you embody that creed; faithful to a proud heritage, a tradition of honor, and a legacy of valor. You uphold that legacy every day. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year you keep America’s skies safe. So we salute the 3rd Wing and the 11th Air Force. You project power across the Pacific; returning just recently from Guam, the 90th Fighter Squadron, the Dice Men, and the 525th Fighter Squadron, the Bulldogs, and all the maintenance troops who support them, welcome home. And when disaster strikes, whether a typhoon in the Phillippines or an earthqake in Samoa, you’re there delivering the relief that saves lives, so thank you Firebirds. Today we also send our thoughts and prayers to all those who at this very moment are serving on the front lines. They are airmen from Elmendorf in every corner of the world. They’re soldiers from Fort Richardson, military police in Iraq. The 4th Brigade Combat Team in Afghanistan. Fort Rich paratroopers to tough assignments. A few years back, you all spent 14 months in Iraq. Now, they’re working to bring stability and security to Eastern Afghanistan; building roads and medical clinics, renovating schools, protecting the Afghan people, giving them a chance at a better future. And they are doing a terrific job and we salute them. But with services come sacrifice. All of you know this. You’ve made the most profound commitment a person can make; you’ve pledged to dedicate your life to your country, and perhaps give your life for it. Here at Elmendorf and Fort Richardson, some have. They’re airmen, like Staff Sergent Timothy Bowles, who when a comrade fell sick, volunteered to take his place on the patrol in Afghanistan that would end up taking his life. They’re soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team like the husband and father who gave his life in Afghanistan last week, Specialist Julian Berisford. And citizens of this state, like Alaska Native Corporal Gregory Fleury. Raised in Anchorage, he joined the Marines and served two tours in Iraq. He loved the corps, he loved Alaska, so much so that he carried the state flag with him everywhere. It was with him last month when he was killed in those helicopter crashes in Afghanistan. A little while ago I had the honor of meeting Greg’s family; Donna and Christopher, and his grandfather Albert, and I expressed the gratitude of our nation and we thank them for being with us here today. Donna, Albert, please stand [Applause].

There are no words that are strong enough, and no tribute worthy enough to match the magnitude of such service. But to you and all who serve I say this: The American people thank you. We honor you. And just as you have fulfilled your responsibilities to your nation, your nation will fulfill its responsibilities to you. So as your Commander in Chief here’s the commitment I make to you: We’ll make sure you can meet the missions we ask of you, and that’s why we’re increasing the defense budget, including spending on the air force and the army. We’ll make sure we have the right force structure, so we’ve halted reductions in the air force, increased the size of the army ahead of schedule, and also approved a temporary increase in the army. We’ll spend our defense dollars wisely. So we’re cutting tens of billions of dollars in waste and projects that even the Pentagon says it doesn’t need; money that’s better spent on taking care of you and your families and building the 21st century military that we do need. I want you guys to understand that I will never hesitate to use force to protect the American people or our vital interests, but I also make you this promise: I will not risk your lives unless it is necessary to America’s vital interests. And if it is necessary, the United States of America will have your back. We’ll give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve, we’ll give you the equipment and support that you need to get the job done, and that includes public support back home. That is a promise that I make to you.

And as you meet your missions around the world, we will take care of your families here at home. And that’s why the First Lady, Michele, has been visiting bases across the country [Woman in the audience shouts "Go Michele!"] Go Michele. [Applause] Your family is a priority for our family. So, we’re increasing pay, we’re increasing child care, we’re increasing support to help spouses and families deal with the stress and separation of war. And finally, we pledge to be there when you come home. We’re improving care for our wounded warriors. Especially those with PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. I want to salute the outstanding work you do at the hospital here on base, including your new TBI clinic. Thank you for giving our wounded warriors the world class care they deserve. We’re funding the post-9/11 GI Bill, because we want to give your families the chance to pursue your dreams, and we’re making the biggest commitment to our veterans; the largest percentage increase in the VA budget in more than thirty years.

So, these are the commitments I’m making to you. Because you’ve always taken care of America, and America has to take care of you back. America’s obligation to our military, as we saw this week, is a sacred trust that we are honor bound to uphold. It’s a sacred trust that brought a nation together this week around 13 battle field crosses; it’s a sacred trust that leads us to pause on that November day to give thanks for all those who served before us. It’s the sacred trust that brings me here to say thank you for serving today, thank you to you and your families for all you do to protect this country we love. God bless you, and God Bless the United States of America. Thank you everybody, thank you.”

The comments on local news sites, to great comfort, were overwhelmingly positive, as should be the case. If you cannot get behind the President of the United States reaffirming his personal commitment, as both Barack Obama the person and President Obama, the Commander in Chief, to our military, than you truly are nothing more than your hostile rhetoric, and have lost respect for our democracy. Sorry, that’s just the reality. I apologize to those who have been coaxed unintended into that position, but whether or not you realize how you got there, you’re there. To those who praised Governor Parnell and Senator Murkowski for shirking their responsibilities as elected representatives of our state, shame on you. To those angry with Senator Begich for attending, I would remind you that he also was in attendance, as Anchorage Mayor, during trips from Bush and Cheney. For once, I can say something positive about Mayor Sullivan, who indeed showed up. Perhaps his own declaration of “anti-bullying month” inspired him to stand up to the nutwing of his party. Dare to dream, I suppose. And, to those of you who continued on with the fatigued talking points, denouncing the President as nothing more than a wordsmith, a teleprompter president… Would it really make it easier on you if he couldn’t string sentences together when trying to comfort, defend, and promote our troops?

Or is this just more decided hatred, without any merit, other than fictional diatribes offered by Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, or the rest of the Clear Channel Armies?

Posted by “Guest” (way to stand behind your comment) on KTUU’s article:

“Alaska’s first visit by a Communist dictator wannabe. Oooo, someone “almost melted”- must be a female. Let’s evaluate our politicians on SOMETHING more than how we feel emotionally? Hmmmmmm?”

Yes, sir. Let’s indeed evaluate our politicians on something more than emotional responses. Please. Before tearing him apart, let’s let him prove or destroy himself. He made a lot of promises to our troops today. How about we see what he does, thank him for stopping by to say hello, and take it from there? Hmmmmmmmm?

While the comments split about 50/50 on KTUU, this snarky comment from one of the staff alarmed me, regarding comments which must have been taken down before my prying eyes tuned in:

“Please keep the discussion here civil, folks. When we start seeing comments that are off-topic or in any way out of line, we will delete them. We haven’t done so in the past, but from now on there will be more moderation of the commenting on KTUU.com… Be advised (and remember to check your spelling). Questions or comments can be referred to cgrove@ktuu.com”

Yikes. I’m guessing that must have been pleasant.

According to me, I say thank you, Mr. President. I hope you follow up and visit us again, as you originally intended, in the Summer, when the gears in your alleged “Chicago Political Robot” body won’t grind to a stop. I appeal to you to keep your word to the troops. Follow through on those promises, and maybe spend a bit more time following up on all the other ones you made on the campaign trail as well. If you recall, shortly after being sworn in, and already subjected to a lot of criticism from both sides, you asked us to give you a year. So far, I see an economic bubble re-inflated, but not dealt with. I see bank thugs playing Secret Santa with tax payer dollars, while jobs continue to disappear like Carrie Prejean’s sense of manners. I see health care reform quickly digressing into a failing fifth grade science project. Guantanamo is still open, Afghanistan is disintegrating, Iraq is becoming the new Afghanistan in that we’ve all but stopped talking about it, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is still in effect. Torture is still pablum, as is rendition. The message of obstruction is becoming acceptable in the wake of your inability to communicate one.

I, too, am inspired when you speak. But that year is creeping up.

Again, thank  you sir. Time to step up to the plate. A lot of us are absolutely desperate to be able to get behind you.

Ok, I just realized, that my first version was way too hard to play. (which means it’s crap, just forget about it)

So I made a modified version of my original transcription. Now it has an “average” transcription difficulty (so I assume)

Just check it out:   Only my railgun(easy ver.).pdf

Midi + mp3:   Only my railgun

However, if you are ready to accept some real challenge, here is the final (expert) version of Only my railgun

Only my railgun (expert ver.).pdf

Midi + mp3: Only my railgun (expert ver.)

Have fun!

Animenz

It’s a working Veteran’s holiday. Well, i’ll wait for the Thanksgiving.

“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Enthusiastically inspired, seeing various hues of inspiration and courage, full of creativity and insights.

with 27 files to work on, i am enthused to finish this with passion and carefulness.  Quality versus quantity.. oh my… I can really do this.

So lets just begin! I just finished my first and newest work with the composer software:

Allow me to introduce my premier work of transcription:

To aru kagaku no Railgun Opening:  Only my Railgun by fripside

In my holy opinion this is pretty much the best OP of the current fall season. It has a catchy rhythm and some cool electronic voices. Especially the verse is well done because of the short piano solo part.

It wasn’t transcribed yet, so I thought I’ll just do it instead.

The music sheet : Only my railgun.pdf

The associated MIDI file: Only my railgun.mid

And if you prefer mp3 : Only my railgun.mp3

I might possibly post a video of me playing the piece but unfortunately I don’t have a good microphone. I’ll cover this later.

Anyway: Please give me some feedback and suggestions, what I should improve.

It’s my first work after all ^^

Animenz

Very troughout review about how 95% of genes are alternatively spliced. Splicing and spliceosome assembly figure, description of participating proteins. Good figures help to comprehend the current picture.

Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2009 Nov;10(11):741-54. Epub 2009 Sep 23.  

Mechanisms of alternative splicing regulation: insights from molecular and genomics approaches.

Chen M, Manley JL.

Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA.

PMID: 19773805

Unless you are a legal transcriptionist or a medical transcriptionist, chances are you are expected not to provide verbatim transcripts.

If you are a general transcriptionist, you may be assigned the task of transcribing a teleseminar, webinar or interview, for example, where the actual transcript will be provided as a paid product or offered as part of a package to a specific audience. In other words, it has to be product ready. It has to be ready to either appear in a blog for all the world to see or it has to be product ready, readable and digestible by its general audience.

As part of this, you may also be required to edit the transcript for clarity. What does ’edited for clarity’ mean? My mentor Susie Ward of The Admin Source taught me well. She taught me the following:

• Never lose the speaker’s voice or personality
• It’s okay to correct glaring grammactical errors when they appear as long as you keep the speaker’s voice
•  How to keep paragraphs shorter and how to make sure that the speaker’s points are made in a succinct and professional manner

Okay, so getting rid of those ‘ums, ahs and other uglies’; how do you do that without losing the speaker’s personality?

• Before you start transcribing, listen to the audio for a little while.  Listen to the speaker and get to know him/her a little bit better before you start to actually transcribe what they’re saying. Your ‘ear’ will eventually become attuned to that speaker’s accent and their emphasis on certain repetitive words/phrases  ( i.e. ‘you know’, ‘um ‘, ’so’, etc.)

• Leave in some of those words/phrases but not all of them. If you leave them all in, it can become distracting to the reader. If you leave none of them in, it may become too homogenized to the extent that even the speaker doesn’t recognize himself/herself.

• There is a fine balance when doing general transcription for internet-based businesses. As a top-notch general transcriptionist, your job is to capture the true essence of what that person is saying and allow his/her intelligence to shine through without the distraction of the normal filler words they may use to fill dead airspace.

The best advice I can give to any general transcriptionist who is transcribing an interview or teleseminar that perhaps may be utilized by your client for later publication on the web is first to get to know your speaker as best you can. If he/she references certain websites, author names, etc., take the time to Google those references so that those links are accurate. Never put a hyperlink in a transcript that you already haven’t checked out first to make sure it works and is active.

I am very eager to learn about two things. One, I would love to hear from general transcriptionists and your challenges with regard to editing your transcripts to a certain degree in order to make your speakers’ prose flow in a comprehensive and easily digestible manner. Two, I would love to hear from your clients themselves in terms of what they really want in terms of editing their transcripts.

Thank you!

Karen

The notation for the solo is here:

Transcription

The other day I had the pleasure of opening my e-mail inbox and finding a transcription of my intro solo to lesson #9 done by Benrd Moser from Austria. I’ve had a few people present me with transcriptions in the past and it’s always a surreal experience. I always look down at the page and think, “Is this me?” LOL! Anyway, Bernd asked me to analyze the solo and kind of relate what I’m thinking during each passage.

Some of what follows is very contrived for sure. For me, a lot of the theory comes after the fact. When I was younger, my approach to playing over changes was definitely more theory based and I can tell you, I didn’t get very far with that. Now, I mostly deal with shapes, sounds, and written variations based on transcribed materials.

The way I make my videos is pretty simple. I pick a topic and just try to give a brief overview of it. The intro demonstrations are usually just thrown together in a couple of takes. The one for lesson #9 was a 2^nd take. For lesson #9, I chose to play over the progression to Miles Davis’s “Solar” because I had been working on applying Coltrane subs over it.

ANALYSIS

Measures 1-4:

The most obvious thing that stands out right away is the use of the B natural on beat 1 of measure 3. I could devise an elaborate theory to explain away my note choice here but it’s really not that complex. Looking at measure 2, you can clearly see the use of the Eb6 (or C- in 1^st inversion) arpeggio. From there, I simply lead into G Major by step, which leads to a figure that implies C7b9. Looking at measure 3, you can see that I anticipate the C7 ALT chord by 2 beats and just allow the b9 to carry over the barline. I remember hearing Vic Juris talking about this technique and I’ve been trying to implement it a bit here and there. Honestly, I didn’t really think about what I was playing at the time but I’ve spent a lot of time constructing various “outside” lines on the first 4 bars of this tune. We will see a much clearer example of this in the 2^nd chorus.

Measures 5-8:

Starting from the pick up of note of measure 5, you should notice the use of the following triad pair= F Maj/G Maj. Triad Pairs are a huge part of my playing in this current time period. Expect a lesson that topic sometime in the future.

Measure 8 and 9 presents a figure that, believe it or not, is derived from Coltrane’s 1,2,3,5 licks. Basically, at one point I sat down and learned every single possible permutation of the pattern (24 in all) and spread them all across the neck.

Here, you can clearly see that I am using the Ab Major version of the pattern over the F-7 chord.=Ab 1,2,3,5 Pattern: Ab, Bb, C, Eb, F

The use of displacement and misdirection of the line is what disguises it from its original source. Incidentally, the lick is transcribed an octave below where it is actually played on the neck.

To further explain what I’m doing here I am including an excerpt from an e-mail I had written to a friend who was asking me about a similar lick I played in another solo. This excerpt should also give you some idea of how I practice this material:

“Basic 1,2,3,5, grouping=C,D,E,G,

I just look at that as a melodic structure, calling C #1. Simple enough, right?

So from there, I created this routine:

1) I take that melodic structure and figure it out in EVERY key, in ever position, in every direction (horizontal, vertical, etc.) Let’s say I’m focusing on C. So I do the whole routine until I can do it in even 8th notes at a reasonable tempo say…8th notes at 200 BPM.

Then I improvise 6 passes against a C7 vamp (5 minutes each.) Totaling a 1/2 hour of play only using that structure. The permutations are really explored in these improvisations.

I document all my observations after each pass and write what ideas sound good and what I’m lacking. For instance, I might be avoiding certain positions or something like that.

Once, I completed all of the basic 1,2,3,5 studies, I moved on to the other structures, which you seem to understand.

After that lengthy process and completion of all the melodic structures. I would then move on to applying them to chord progressions. Let’s just say the ii-V7-I for starters. Then move on to playing over entire tunes using the structures.

Now, I don’t think in a theoretical way in comparison to a lot of people, so I don’t really spend too much time analyzing the theory. For example, on the first chord of “Stella by Starlight” academic theory says to play that Locrian scale. I’ve rarely ever heard anyone do that though. I transcribed Keith Jarrett and he’s plays what I recently found out is the 6th mode of Melodic Minor. I don’t know the name of it though. I just think of it as a minor scale with a b5 because that’s what the chord is -7b5.

From that I see the melodic structures available to me:

E, F#, G, A, Bb, C, D,->E

R: 1,2,b3,b5

3: 1,2, b3,5

b5: 1,2,3,5

b7: 1,2,3,5

9: 1,b2, 3,5

11: 1, b2, 3, 5

Since, I already did the work and permutated them in all positions and all directions…well, I just kind of play.

Now keep in mind, I’m all always thinking about the chord tones and what the next chord is…

So, it’s the same thing with everything else.

Also, I should note that when improvising with these melodic structures, I rarely play them as an entity on to themselves. Also, I will play a lot of licks that span 2 or 3 octaves based on one structure.

EX:

Ascending up the neck:

G-(6th string)

C-D-E (5th string)

G (4th string)

C (3rd string)

E-G (2nd string)

C (1st string)

————————————————–“

Measures 9-12:

These passages seem to be fairly straight ahead. In measure 10, you may notice the use of the Gb Maj. Triad over the Ab7 chord. I learned that particular triad relationship from Coltrane. In this particular case, I didn’t think about it consciously but that sound is beat into my head from practicing it forever. For the turnaround in measure 12, I stay very inside the changes by using guide-tones. As you will see, I go fairly outside in measure 13.  Generally, I think juxtaposing something inside against an idea that is more adventurous is often a good choice.

Measures 13-16:

In this section you may notice that there is extensive use of triads. Essentially, what I am doing here is taking the CmMaj7 chord and playing the Major 3^rd cycle over it. The actual changes I am imply here are as follows:

C-, Eb Maj., Ab Maj., B Maj., E Maj., G Maj.,

Those of you that are familiar with Coltrane’s harmony will instantly recognize these chords. Also, you may notice that the cycle breaks in bar 15. Here, I use a very primitive pentatonic line to conclude the overall idea. From there, you should notice that I use the beginning of a C Bebop scale in the 2^nd half of bar 16 and land on an F# on the pick-up note. Actually, I was simply trying to “side-slip” out to a F# Maj. Between the C7 and F Maj. Chord in bar 17.

Measures 17-20:

In measure 18, I use a double chromatic on the 4^th beat to lead into a F minor pentatonic scale in measure 19. That particular pentatonic passage makes use of 5^th’s. This passage seems to work well over the chord because every strong beat in the measure relates to the F min.7 chord= F (Root), Bb (11), Eb (b7), Ab (b3.) The line then leads nicely into measure 19 where 2 triads (Ab Maj. and B dim.) are utilized over the Bb Alt. chord. If you analyze the two triads, you can clearly see how they relate to the parent chord.

Ab Maj.=Ab (b7), C (9), Eb  (11)

B Diminished=B (b9), D (3^rd), F (5^th)

I probably stole this idea from Coltrane at some point…

Measures 21-24:

The end is fairly straight ahead. In the final turnaround, I do sort of reduce the entire minor ii-7b5-V7b9 to G7b9. I think in my head it sounds like the strongest resolution. Of course, I allow the C to float over the bar line to bring it to a close.

Thanx again go out to Benrd Moser for doing an excellent transcription!

These were my questions to one of my colleagues when she started a chat conversation late this afternoon asking if I could accommodate her work load in her absence. Sadly, she will undergo a surgery, a nephrectomy with a schedule to be confirmed by tomorrow.  This news saddened me not because I’ll be extending my work hours but for the reason that she will lose one of her kidneys, specifically her right one.   Length of stay in the hospital depends on the type of nephrectomy procedure.  Traditional nephrectomy patients are usually hospitalized for one week, recovery period is 3-4 weeks, so that will be a total of one month.  Whew, that is quite extensive plus the ortho account aside from the primary account.  Through CT stonogram, a renal stone was radiographically viewed and her nephrologist advised for the said surgery as her condition is considered chronic and there was calcification.  I wished her a successful operation and steadfast recuperation.  Wished she is just near coz she just deserves a big hug.

It is a real challenge to commit to changing focus from oneself to someone, and today I have committed myself to a mere act of kindness, and repeatedly memorizing these lines of Emily Dickinson:

Hope is the thing with feathers—

that perches in the soul—

and sings the tune without words—

and never stops–at all–

Hunter S. Thompson apparently made a habit of transcribing the literature of other authors. Instead of writing it and letting it sit, I figure it will do more on the internet, out of context.

“I’ll kill him though,” he said. “in all his greatness and his glory.”
Although it is unjust, he thought. But I will show him what a man can do and what a man endures.
“I told the boy I was a strange old man,” he said. “Now is when I must prove it.”
The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.
I wish he’d sleep and I could sleep and dream about the lions, he thought. Why are the lions the main thing that is left? Don’t think, old man, he said to himself. Rest gently now against the wood and think of nothing. He is working. Work as little as you can.
It was getting into the afternoon and the boat still moved slowly and steadily. But there was an added drag now from the easterly breeze and the old man rode gently with the small sea and the hurt of the cord across his back came to him easily and smoothly.
Once in the afternoon the line started to rise again. But the fish only continued to swim at a slightly higher level. The sun was on the old man’s left arm and shoulder and on his back. So he knew the fish had turned east of north.
Now that he had seem him once, he could picture the fish swimming in the water with his purple pectoral fins set wide as wings and the great erect tail slicing through the dark. I wonder how much he sees at that depth, the old man thought. His eye is huge and a horse, with much less eye, can see in the dark. Once I could see quite well in the dark. Not in the absolute dark. But almost as a cat sees.
The sun and his steady movement of his fingers had uncramped his left hand now completely and he began to shift more of the strain to it and he shrugged the muscles of his back to shift the hurt of the cord a little.
“If you’re not tired, fish,” he said aloud, “you must be very strange.”
He felt very tired now and he knew that night would come soon and he tried to think of other things. He thought of the Big Leagues, to him they were the Gran Ligas, and he knew that the Yankees of New York were playing the Tigres of Detroit.

This is the second day now that I do not know the result of the juegos, he thought. But I must have confidence and I must be worthy of the great DiMaggio who does all things perfectly even with the pain of the bone spur in his heel. What is a bone spur? he asked himself. Un espuela de hueso. We do not have them. Can it be as painful as the spur of a fighting cock in one’s heel? I do not think I could endure that or the loss of the eye and of both eyes and continue to fight as the fighting cocks do. Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts. Still I would rather be that beast down there in the darkness of the sea.

“Unless sharks come,” he said aloud. “If sharks come, God pity him and me.”
Do you believe the great DiMaggio would stay with a fish as long as I will stay with this one? he thought. I am sure he would and more since he is young and strong. Also his father was a fisherman. But would the bone spur hurt him too much?
“I do not know,” he said aloud. “I never had a bone spur.”
As the sun set he remembered, to give himself more confidence, the time in the tavern at Casablanca when he had played the hand game with the great negro from Cienfuegos who was the strongest man on the docks. They had gone one day and one night with their elbows on a chalk line on the table and their forearms straight up and their hands gripped tight. Each one was trying to force the other’s hand down onto the table. There was much betting and people went in and out of the room under the kerosene lights and he had looked at the arm and hand of the negro and at the negro’s face. They changed the referees every four hours after the first eight so that the referees could sleep. Blood came out from under the fingernails of both his and the negro’s hands and they looked each other in the eye and at their hands and forearms and the bettors went in and out of the room and sat on high chairs against the wall and watched. The walls wer painted bright blue and were of wood and the lamps threw their shadows against them. The negro’s shadow was huge and it moved on the wall as the breeze moved the lamps.
The odds would change back and forth all night and they fed the negro rum and lighted cigarettes for him. Then the negro, after the rum, would try for a tremendous effort and once he had the old man, who was not an old man then but was Santiago El Campeón, nearly three inches off balance. But the old man had raised his hand up to dead even again. He was sure then that he had the negro, who was a fine man and a great athlete, beaten. And at daylight when the bettors were asking that it be called a draw and the referee was shaking his head, he had unleashed his effort and forced the hand of the negro down and down until it rested on the wood. The mach had started on a Sunday morning and ended on a Monday morning. Many of the bettors had asked for a draw because they had to go to work on the docks loading sacks of sugar or at the Havana Coal Company. Otherwise everyone would have wanted it to go to a finish. But he had finished it anyway and before anyone had to go to work.
For a long time after that everyone had called him The Champion and there had been a return match in the spring. But not much money was bet and he had won it quite easily since he had broken the confidence of the negro from Cienfuegos in the first match. After that he had a few matches and then no more. He decided that he could beat anyone if he wanted to badly enough and he decided that it was bad for his right hand for fishing. He had tried a few practice matches with his left hand. But his left hand had always been a traitor and would not do what he called on it to do and he did not trust it.
The sun will bake it out well now, he thought. It should not cramp on me again unless it gets too cold in the night. I wonder what this night will bring.
An airplane passed overhead on its course to Miami and he watched its shadow scarinf up the schools of flying fish.
“With so much flying fish there should be dolphin,” he said, and leaned back on the line to see if it was possible to gain any on his fish. But he could not and it stayed at the hardness and water-drop shivering that preceded breaking. The boat moved ahead slowly and he watched the airplane until he could no longer see it.
It must be very strange in an airplane, he thought. I wonder what the sea looks like from that height? They should be able to see the fish well if they do not fly too high. I would like to fly very slowly at two hundred fathoms high and see the fish from above. In the turtle boats I was in the cross-trees of the mast-head and even at that height I saw much. The dolphin look greener from there and you can see their stripes and their purple spots and you can see all of the school as they swim. Why is it that all the fast-moving fish of the dark current have purple backs and usually purple stripes or spots? The dolphin looks green of course because he is really golden. But when he comes to feed, truly hungry, purple stripes show on his sides as on a marlin. Can it be anger, or the greater speed he makes that brings them out?
Just before it was dark, as they passed a great island of Sargasso weed that heaved and swung in the light sea as though the ocean were making love with something under a yellow blanket, his small line was taken by a dolphin. He saw it first when it jumped in the air, true gold in the last of the sun and bending and flapping wildly in the air. It jumped again and again in the acrobatics of its fear and he worked his way back to the stern and crouching and holding the big line with his right hand and arm, he pulled the dolphin in with his left hand, stepping on the gained line each time with his bare left foot. When the fish was at the stern, plunging and cutting from side to side in desperation, the old man leaned over the stern and lifted the burnished gold fish with its purple spots over the stern. Its jaws were working convulsively in quick bites against the hook and it pounded the bottom of the skiff with its long flat body, its tail and its head until he clubbed it across the shining golden head until it shivered and was still.

Ernest Hemingway
The Old Man and The Sea