This project is really cool! I didn't know we were "there" yet, it's
pretty amazing... I remember playing with voice recognition with
Kurzweil software a few *decades* ago and it was... promising? I had
somehow lost hope this would ever work, but it seems this is it!

Anyway. I was impressed by the video, but one thing I found confusing at
first is I didn't recognize any of the words spoken. It was all
gibberish to me. It's only after a while I realized there was a mapping
between the words and the letters being shown, and even then, I couldn't
believe it because... well, because it wasn't the right letters! :)

See, anyone involved with amateur radio (or the navy or whatever) would
have instantly understood what was going on if, instead of "air bat cap"
you would say "alpha bravo charlie". i suspect recognition would also be
more reliable because those words have been carefully crafted to be
recognizable over a lot of noise and incredible interference.

So I wonder: where does that alphabet come from! It's really refreshing
to see something completely new like this, but also totally jarring.. I
wonder if it would be a good idea to add the NATO alphabet in there...

More information about those "standard" (and yes, there's of course many
to choose from) here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelling_alphabet

... and thanks for this inspiring software!
-- 
In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be antiracist.
                        - Angela Davis

On 2023-09-12 23:33:02, John Gebbie wrote:
> Thanks Antoine! we're "there" :)
>
> The NATO alphabet is very distinguishable but we're also looking for efficiency
> as we're saying these phrases many times a day, and speech models are already
> very accurate recognizing syllables alone. Though it was a lot of trial and
> error to get to the phrases we have now.

Oooh.. I see, so it's a different alphabet precisely because the
existing ones are too slow to spell out. It's true that about every
letter in the NATO alphabet is two syllables, pretty much on purpose
too...

> That said, some users have shared their alternate phrases,
> including Étienne who likes his abbreviated French NATO alphabet:
> https://gitlab.com/bersace/config/-/blob/master/files/.config/numen/fr/phrases/alphabet-abbr.phrases

Nice, that's actually a little more intuitive. And I'll point out that
the NATO alphabet is deliberately billingual: it works in french and
english, at least..

a.

-- 
No animal has more liberty than the cat; but it buries the mess it
makes. The cat is the best anarchist. Until they learn that from the cat
I cannot respect them.
                        - For whom the bell tolls, Ernest Hemingway

Thanks Antoine! we're "there" :)

The NATO alphabet is very distinguishable but we're also looking for efficiency
as we're saying these phrases many times a day, and speech models are already
very accurate recognizing syllables alone. Though it was a lot of trial and
error to get to the phrases we have now.

That said, some users have shared their alternate phrases,
including Étienne who likes his abbreviated French NATO alphabet:
https://gitlab.com/bersace/config/-/blob/master/files/.config/numen/fr/phrases/alphabet-abbr.phrases

Thanks for getting in touch!

John