I'm the kind of guy who types curse words into a TTS engine for amusement. I also find stimulation in typing simple phrases into online translators; translate them, translate them back, and enjoy the confused results. What can I say? I'm immature. That's why I couldn't wait to try out the new Microsoft Windows Vista speech recognition feature.

I experimented with this intriguing feature for a while, and I was rather surprised by it's competency. "Open Notepad"... you guessed it; opens notepad. "Press Start", "Save File", and plenty of other useful things. The speech recognition feature is pretty adept at running the operating system and accomplishing menial mouse tasks. However, being speech recognition software, I figured that most people would want to use it for taking dictation.

"Open Notepad," I said to the computer, pleased as pie when it actually responded by opening Notepad. I figured I'd start easy, giving Vista the task of recognizing and typing it's own name...

"Vista", I said, enunciating clearly.
this out

"Vista", I said, pronouncing it more like Veesta.
These the

"Vista", I said repeatedly, with varying pronunciation, and with varying degrees of success.
The set
Vista
Vista
Vista
Vista
He said
He said
This
Vista
These the
These the

"Veeeeestaaaaa", I said, sounding a little like Johnny 5.
He's got, responded Windows.

As you can see, it managed to get it right five times out of fourteen, well in line with Windows' general rate of success. "Vista, don't you know your fucking name?" I asked, almost feeling sorry for the OS. It replied...
This document are flocking name.
and then...
This is a double you know you are flocking name

OK, it failed on its name, excellent. So I thought I would try something a little more difficult, something that it would more likely run across when actually taking dictation.

"Big Floppy Donkey Dick"...
They're all people or things like
Big floppy don't eat it
They copied uppy the

OK, Windows isn't doing a very good job; time to pull out the big guns. A good speech recognition software MUST know this charming phrase...

Mother Bacher
Mother Bacher
Mother locker
mother of
Mud blocker
Mobil blocker
Mobil Oil,
Mother booker
Meredith.
Many of them.
Mother but a
Multiple
Mothers up here . . .
(better, closer, warmer)
Mobile bull
The stump and Mother Bacher can't say mother blocker.

After trying for 10 minutes or so to teach my computer a new word, I finally said, "I don't know how long I can continue repeating all this," and finally, magically, triumphantly, it spit out...
Omaha fucker market committee meets that the mother of all.

Wow.

One strong point in Vista's favor: Once the speech recognition learns a new word, not only will it not forget it, it will begin to use it in place of other similar words, just for fun! For instance, after many attempts to teach it, correct it, and otherwise induce it into saying "fucker", it began mixing it up with the word "walker".
"My grandma's old and can't get around without her fucker."
"Fucker Texas Ranger is my favorite show."

In the end, rather than trying to train the speech recognition engine to bend to my will, I decided to say random things and just stick with whatever it decided to spit out. In this way I was able to gain an advantage over traditional dictation, in that I could get some pseudorandom creativity injected into the mix. Here are a few whimsical examples...

Lizzy's hoo-hah is rad.
Lizzy's hookah is wrapped.

I love Amalfi's Pizza. They have kickass wings.
I will the Maltese pizza. They have TS wieners.

Pretty soon Lizzy and I will be getting a Mastiff puppy.
Pretty soon lazy and I will be getting a master copy.

Jackie has nice boobs.
Jackie has nine spoons.

Azure can sea, Microsoft hash hit a home run with Vista's new speaks repetition feature. Knot tony does sit tape Dick station verily well, its also a major times shaver. With all the competition in the OS market thee stays, this feature clearly gives Microsoft These The a combative edge.



Ok, I made that last part up.