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OCR OCD And today was for the birds
Jul. 4th, 2017 12:10 amStarted in on the letters early, using Omnipage, which oddly is now a product of Nuance, which also bought Dragon Naturally Speaking, which I believe was developed by IBM. I am very impressed with how fast it is. It scans a page in about 10-15 seconds, much faster than I could dictate, and while I do have to make corrections on almost every line, especially where there were folds in the paper, most of them are single characters or gratuitous single quotes, and most are easily caught with spell check in Word.
I have the routine down, to eliminate massive formatting issues (Omnipage is too smart - it adds page breaks where it thinks there should be some, and in Word these are difficult to correct if you are out of eye of newt):
1. Scan each page
2. Run auto-OCR on all the pages in the letter (this is a 1-step process)
3. Save as a text file
4. Open the text file with Word
5. Select all, and click the "normal" formatting button
6. Save as a docx file
7. Edit as needed
8. Cut and paste the "Love, Me" line (handwritten and not OCR-able) and the return address from another text file
9. Save
10. Delete the .txt file from step 3.
Around 10 or so, garbage and green bin were collected, so I parked them in their places on the driveway.
At about noon-thirty it was time to drive to MV and the protected block of (aptly-named) Shorebird Drive which used to be a combination of start-ups and SGI spin-offs, but is now all Google. Took my lightweight Tamron 28-300, plugged in my GPS tagger and searched for herons (egrets, if you want to be technical, but egret is French for heron, sort of, and I like the word heron better).
Today was a non-work day for Google, but there still were cars on the parking lot. I plugged mine into a charger, turned around, and there was the street I was looking for.
There were white birds everywhere. And then there was this guy, sitting on a heron nest, but not looking like either a snowy or great white:
Will have a pointer to lots more photos Real Soon Now, but for now, one which needed no cropping:
Got some mediocre shots of babies being fed (steep angles) and then everything went quiet, so I drove down the block to Starbucks, updated my laptop, Facebooked and mochaed, then went back for another round of herons.
Glad I did, because this time a nest with kiddies feeding was right at the edge of the tree canopy. And there is an adorable shot of a fledgling on the ground hiding amongst the catmints.
From there, since it was so close, Shoreline Park, which was way less crowded than I expected. Mostly relaxed, walking around with the camera. Got this shot of a peregrine falcon up on the mast of the boathouse, lined it up 4th of July style:
Home, recycle bin had been collected, someone had already wheeled that back onto the driveway. Probably my neighbors in #8, to make room for their weekly car shuffle.
In the mailbox was the annual tax assessment for the house. Looks like I'll be paying less this year.
More letters. Break for dinner - smoked turkey drumstick & mixed veggies & ice cream. There were 3 scoops left in the box, I only ate 2.
And more letters.
The last two described the 1976 coup, which I actually saw as it happened, on TV sets in Chinatown electronics stores. But I didn't know what I was watching. My letters do not mention the fact that I was en route to the university where the most bloodshed occurred, on my way to their museum to see the letter which the King had sent asking for a teacher for his children, and cough drops, to a British merchant marine captain. When I saw the TV live stream, I reversed direction.
And there was a lot in those letters about trying to land a UN job, or have my PCV role converted to a UN position. And plans to tour Jugoslavia. None of that happened.
Watched an episode of Glow on Netflix. There is some fine acting, and some downright horrible acting. The script is a mess. It is allegedly offered in HDR, but I'm not seeing any evidence it was shot in HDR. Sydelle Noel stands out, she can actually act. Alison Brie, whose character is the person the story is about, is lame. And the character she plays is even lamer. There are one or two actresses who seem to be diamonds in the rough, or more accurately, hiding their talents under a bushel.
Plans for tomorrow:
More letters. I may finish the project.
I used to love fireworks shows. Now I just don't care.
My house is still the only one on the block flying the flag. I mostly fly it to add color, and so I can see where my driveway is.
I have the routine down, to eliminate massive formatting issues (Omnipage is too smart - it adds page breaks where it thinks there should be some, and in Word these are difficult to correct if you are out of eye of newt):
1. Scan each page
2. Run auto-OCR on all the pages in the letter (this is a 1-step process)
3. Save as a text file
4. Open the text file with Word
5. Select all, and click the "normal" formatting button
6. Save as a docx file
7. Edit as needed
8. Cut and paste the "Love, Me" line (handwritten and not OCR-able) and the return address from another text file
9. Save
10. Delete the .txt file from step 3.
Around 10 or so, garbage and green bin were collected, so I parked them in their places on the driveway.
At about noon-thirty it was time to drive to MV and the protected block of (aptly-named) Shorebird Drive which used to be a combination of start-ups and SGI spin-offs, but is now all Google. Took my lightweight Tamron 28-300, plugged in my GPS tagger and searched for herons (egrets, if you want to be technical, but egret is French for heron, sort of, and I like the word heron better).
Today was a non-work day for Google, but there still were cars on the parking lot. I plugged mine into a charger, turned around, and there was the street I was looking for.
There were white birds everywhere. And then there was this guy, sitting on a heron nest, but not looking like either a snowy or great white:
Will have a pointer to lots more photos Real Soon Now, but for now, one which needed no cropping:
Got some mediocre shots of babies being fed (steep angles) and then everything went quiet, so I drove down the block to Starbucks, updated my laptop, Facebooked and mochaed, then went back for another round of herons.
Glad I did, because this time a nest with kiddies feeding was right at the edge of the tree canopy. And there is an adorable shot of a fledgling on the ground hiding amongst the catmints.
From there, since it was so close, Shoreline Park, which was way less crowded than I expected. Mostly relaxed, walking around with the camera. Got this shot of a peregrine falcon up on the mast of the boathouse, lined it up 4th of July style:
Home, recycle bin had been collected, someone had already wheeled that back onto the driveway. Probably my neighbors in #8, to make room for their weekly car shuffle.
In the mailbox was the annual tax assessment for the house. Looks like I'll be paying less this year.
More letters. Break for dinner - smoked turkey drumstick & mixed veggies & ice cream. There were 3 scoops left in the box, I only ate 2.
And more letters.
The last two described the 1976 coup, which I actually saw as it happened, on TV sets in Chinatown electronics stores. But I didn't know what I was watching. My letters do not mention the fact that I was en route to the university where the most bloodshed occurred, on my way to their museum to see the letter which the King had sent asking for a teacher for his children, and cough drops, to a British merchant marine captain. When I saw the TV live stream, I reversed direction.
And there was a lot in those letters about trying to land a UN job, or have my PCV role converted to a UN position. And plans to tour Jugoslavia. None of that happened.
Watched an episode of Glow on Netflix. There is some fine acting, and some downright horrible acting. The script is a mess. It is allegedly offered in HDR, but I'm not seeing any evidence it was shot in HDR. Sydelle Noel stands out, she can actually act. Alison Brie, whose character is the person the story is about, is lame. And the character she plays is even lamer. There are one or two actresses who seem to be diamonds in the rough, or more accurately, hiding their talents under a bushel.
Plans for tomorrow:
More letters. I may finish the project.
I used to love fireworks shows. Now I just don't care.
My house is still the only one on the block flying the flag. I mostly fly it to add color, and so I can see where my driveway is.
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