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I've just received Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 from Nuance. It's reputedly the best speech recognition software on the market. But, there's a problem:

It won't install.

"No problem", I thought. I'll just Google for the answer. It'll turn up the link that fixes what must be a very common problem. No such luck. Not only that, but it'll cost me at least $10 to even report to Nuance that there's a problem with their software.

I can't imagine why Mozilla hasn't fixed the menu bug yet. And, I can't believe no one else is bothered by it.

Doesn't anyone use full-screen mode? Anytime you switch Firefox to full screen (F11) and try to access a menu using an Alt key combination--for example, Alt-F to bring down the file menu--not only does the menu not come down, when you exit full-screen mode you won't be able to bring that menu down again in that window until you restart Firefox.

Perhaps the whole world is so addicted to their mice that they haven't noticed, having almost completely abandoned the keyboard.

Yes! It can't happen too soon for me.

I just saw an article entitled "Road to the driverless car" on CNN Money. (Update: See the video at ScientificAmerican.com.)

I remember when driving was fun. A long, long time ago, in a Ford Galaxy (it's just a model name, son) far, far away...

I like to think that racism and sexism and other prejudices are largely gone from our society, but I'm still occasionally disappointed.

Here's another mixed message in the news: A woman has won the Turing Award. That shouldn't have been a news item at all, but it turns out a woman has never won the Turing award before. It's a sign of progress that it's happened, but a sad reflection on our society that it hasn't happened before.

I've read several stories along these lines now, so I suppose I should pass it along.

For most people, apparently, one key to improved productivity is to reduce multitasking. That is, turn off your e-mail, reduce other interruptions, and allow yourself more uninterrupted time to concentrate on a single task.