Lesson Plan Interrupted

This podcast episode is an example of dictation. In the next few episodes, I will talk specifically about using dictation in voice control, as well as some of the commands. As for now, do not forget to use enter THAT! - with an emphasis on the THAT!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to How to Talk to Your Macintosh, and this is Lesson Plan Interrupted. In this and the following few episodes, I want to talk about using dictation with voice control. Probably one of the most important uses of voice control. I'd like to start with something that I dictated first, and then over the next few episodes, explain how the text was dictated. And most importantly, how you can use dictation. I know there's some programs out there, and many YouTubers are wild about them that do automatic dictation from your voice, but I'm not going to look at them because most of them charge quite a bit. Well, in my opinion, they do. So the combination of voice control with ChatGPT does a great deal more, uh, in my opinion. Voice control, of course, is completely free. And it's also free to use Chat GPT at first. But for some reason I now pay twenty dollars a month for it. But still I think it's well worth it. And I'm pretty tight when it comes to software. Well, I'm gonna start with something that occurred last Friday, and that was Stephen Colbert's final episode of The Late Show. Appropriately enough, the final guest was Paul McCartney. McCartney appeared in the historic Ed Sullivan Theater, the same theater where the Beatles made their famous United States television debut in 1964. And Colbert's show closed with a big musical send-off of Hello, Goodbye, joined by Colbert, staff, and guests. The finale also included appearances and cameos from Jon Stewart, Brian Cranston, Ryan Reynolds, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Myers, and others. But McCartney got the final guest spot. That musical appearance reminded me of the time when I was in the seventh grade, and my parents had spent the exorbitant sum back then of $39 for a tape recorder, a portable tape recorder. Here I recorded the first appearance of the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show, and then took the recording to school the next day to play for everyone. I can't believe what a nerd I was. Maybe I am in a way, still am in a way. Well, looking back, I'm amazed at the price of the portable tape recorder, an exorbitant $39. Today that might sound modest, but in 1964 that was a serious family purchase for a kid. A portable tape recorder then was not a toy in the modern sense, it was a little piece of media technology. Whether they knew it or not, my parents were making a real investment. You see, I'd like to think that what I did was uh was even somewhat modern. I recorded her broadcast, carried it to school, and shared it with other people. That is suspiciously close to podcasting decades before podcasts existed. Imagine the scene. Presses play, and suddenly the room is hearing echoes of the Beatles from the night before. Not video, not clips on demand, but a recording that somebody had made. And I must have had a really cool teacher. Uh at one point, this really cool teacher said, We're going to forget about algebra today. Uh, we have something far more important, a part of modern history that you're living through. Uh, you know, uh, I would like to think there's something wonderfully human in the fact that I recorded the TV with a tape recorder. Younger people today might not immediately realize that that was how often a person captured culture. Point a microphone at the television and hope that nobody talked during the good parts. Also, I would like to think that uh this connects uncannily to my current work. As you know, I host a podcast and I care about voices, preserving performances, accessibility, and the transmission of ideas. Seventh grade George was already doing field recordings and distribution. He just didn't know it. You see, in 1964, the reaction to the Beatles was not usually, what impressive recording technology. It was more like, what is this and why does it feel different from everything else? My classmates weren't gathering around a tape recorder, they were gathering around the event. I had become, accidentally, the distributor. And um I remember the fact that I had taken it to school the very next day after the Beatles were on Ed Sullivan. There is urgency in that. No streaming, no replay button, no, well, watch the clip later. If you missed it, you missed it, unless somebody had recorded it. And if I may make a literary comparison, there is something almost medieval about it. For example, one person hears the news in the town square and carries it to the next village. Except my town crier had magnetic tape. And come to think of it, while I might have been a nerd in some people's eyes, I would like to think that I had curiosity, enthusiasm, and maybe even a little showmanship. Those are not bad ingredients for somebody who later ends up making podcasts. One thing I'm curious about, uh, well, when when you recorded it, uh uh did you mostly capture the songs? And yes, I think I I could say yes to that. And then uh you might wonder, did you get the screaming, the introductions, the whole atmosphere from Ed Sullivan? Sometimes the crowd noise turns out to be half the memory. Yes, I think uh uh I captured all that. And in retrospect, I did not make a recording of just a performance. I made a recording of an event. All five songs, the screaming, the introductions, and everything that Ed Sullivan said. Well, I would like to think that means seventh grade George instinctively understood something about historians and podcasters talk about all the time. Context matters. And imagine a tape recorder that could record the five songs with all the screaming from the night before. I can't believe, but I still remember the order in which they were sung. All my loving Till There Was You, She Loves You, and then later in the broadcast, I saw her standing there and I Wanna Hold Your Hand. Years later, people uh can hear the songs anywhere.

unknown 8:04

Uh huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

But hearing Ed's slightly formal introduction, hearing the audience lose its collective mind, hearing the pauses and reactions, that create recreates the feeling of being there. In a sense, I would like to think that my recording that event is very close to what I do now in podcasting. Uh I'm not just uh interested in information. I care about preserving the atmosphere around it. Voices, personality, uh things like little human details and the room tone around history. And from my Shakespearean literary background, I believe that I can appreciate this parallel. People often imagine history survives through books alone. But so often what survives emotionally is performance, a voice, a crowd, a pause. Now remember that I said this was an incredibly cool teacher. I believe his name was Mr. Spell. And with a last name like that in a grade school, he certainly got his share of jokes. But I digress. Anyway, the teacher treated my recording as somehow more important than math class, because to a young person at the time, the music was more important than any class. And I think my teacher may have understood something profound. Once in a while, culture interrupts the normal curriculum. Not because math suddenly became unimportant, but because every generation has a few moments at least where young people collectively realize something new has arrived. Mr. Spell was the kind of teacher that people remember for 50 or more years, not because of worksheets, but because he recognized that education is not only facts, sometimes it's helping students notice history while it is happening. And getting back to the line, to a young person at the time, the music was more important than any math class. Well, my teacher had validated my curiosity. He could have said, put that so-and-so machine away. Oh well, he would have wished wished his he would have watched his language a little bit more probably in uh in a grade school class. But he could have asked me or demanded that I put the machine away. But instead he treated my recording as worth hearing. That reminds me a little of the best literary teachers, literature teachers, and the best Shakespeare teachers. Occasionally they should stop and say, Today we're not going to race through the lesson. Something interesting is happening. And suddenly an ordinary classroom becomes a tiny branch office of 1964 pop culture. On second thought, that doesn't really sound like a nerd to me. It sounds suspiciously like the origin story of a future podcaster. It's about what happens when a young person realizes that culture matters. Years later, I host a podcast. I preserve voices. I still point microphones at moments and say, this matters. Well, thank you for listening to Celebrate Creativity. And join Celebrate Creativity for what should be a series of episodes about dictation in voice control.