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Voices ᐋ ᐄᔮᔨᐧᒫᓂᐧᐃᒡ

Updating the oral tradition

BY Sonny Orr Feb 13, 2020

I’m ready. This rez notes I’m not touching the keyboard. I’m just using my voice to record everything in typing everything out. As of today, this machine is the only one listening to me as I’m writing for all the people who don’t wanna type anymore.

Voice recognition, once the domain of Stephen Hawkins. He figured out how the universe worked. It’s now working for me. Even the auto correct is working and I’m typing much faster than I ever have in my life. So, sit back as I ramble on into my machine and you could play it back on some sort playback machine. It’s a wonderful way of doing business. As I’ve also discovered that entering all the data into a spreadsheet is very easy by just reading the numbers and voicing out the formulas.

Normally it takes me half an hour to write this column by hand. Today it’s taking me about 5 minutes. It’s so cool I don’t have to type anymore. No more carpal tunnel syndrome, no more squinting, no more backspacing, man not too many typing errors to boot.

The only real problem is when I try to say someone’s name up here like mccornick Apple (Niquannicappo) or Mr. chizik (Mistacheesic) and anger to look (Angatookalook). I can’t wait to use this on my phone so I don’t have to open my laptop anymore and talking to myself will be quite normal. Sooner or later we should be able to Baptist tour Creed language and then onto teaching tools and then next thing you know an iPad will be teaching Cree in school.

Soon in the future your teacher will just be on the screen replacing the chalk board if anybody remembers what that is and replacing the teacher eventually. Schools will be replaced by little tiny rooms and built into every house there would be little teaching centres eliminating the need for school buses and saving gas everywhere in the planet. Children will be safe at home playing in their own neighbourhood growing up with the families that the grew up with all their lives. This may seem a little odd, but I think it’s always safer not to send your child away to some far-off city. 

Even the tools that you need and the furniture… well everything you will need will be printed out on the 3D printer. A little stroll to the local 3D print shop to pick up the order that you found online the day earlier. Can you imagine ordering your snowmobile or ATV parts this way? Or how about that fake diamond ring that you promised your girlfriend way back when?

The funny thing is this is already available to the masses. Are you just not part of the masses or you don’t wanna be like the rest of the world? Maybe with this new technology we can just create our own little world without actually having to adapt and change every time a new fad comes up. 

On my three-dimensional wish list (in any order) are sparkplugs, belts and oil filters for starters. Maybe a collapsible camouflage chair that doubles as a blind and can fit in your pocket. Or replacing that missing LEGO piece for the complicated game the other day, which we immediately lost. Specialty plates, knives and forks for that special birthday party you were planning. Which leads to a nice investment for the future – ink and materials for the printer perhaps. Maybe a highway could be printed one day.

As for me I’m sending this article without typing anything. Bye everybody.

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Sonny Orr is Cree from Chisasibi, and has been a columnist for the Nation for over 20 years. He regularly pens Rez Notes from the cozy social club in Whapmagoostui where he resides.