Honorverse ramblings and musings

OrlandoNative wrote:People here have thought of it several times. There has been much speculation on where the next treecat colonies will be. So far there are two--on Grayson and on Gryphon. A number of people has speculated that there will soon be colonies on Manticore, Haven, and New Berlin.

The Treecat colonies on Grayson and Gryphon are on Honor's demesnes. The presumed colony on Haven would be under President Pritchard and Adm Theisman's protection -- along with a dozen or so other "bodyguards" companions with significant influence.

A colony on Manticore would have Royal Protection, Constitutional protections, and another of Honor's Demesnes to work with.

The problem with New Potsdam is that Chien Liu would have been the only Andermani with a "bodyguard." There would be no one in New Potsdam who could communicate with a treecat, and no real way to overcome the "pet" image of a treecat when there was no practical communication.

There may be a treecat colony in the Andermani's future, but it won't be a 'near' future.

Weird Harold wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:People here have thought of it several times. There has been much speculation on where the next treecat colonies will be. So far there are two--on Grayson and on Gryphon. A number of people has speculated that there will soon be colonies on Manticore, Haven, and New Berlin.

The Treecat colonies on Grayson and Gryphon are on Honor's demesnes. The presumed colony on Haven would be under President Pritchard and Adm Theisman's protection -- along with a dozen or so other "bodyguards" companions with significant influence.

A colony on Manticore would have Royal Protection, Constitutional protections, and another of Honor's Demesnes to work with.

The problem with New Potsdam is that Chien Liu would have been the only Andermani with a "bodyguard." There would be no one in New Potsdam who could communicate with a treecat, and no real way to overcome the "pet" image of a treecat when there was no practical communication.

There may be a treecat colony in the Andermani's future, but it won't be a 'near' future.

Considering that it was *people* who taught *treecats* to sign, I suspect that there are at least *some* folks in New Potsdam that could communicate with any treecats that might relocate there. Maybe not many, but probably enough to become official "translators".

There's probably also no reason a "translator" DEVICE couldn't be developed, where a visual input device recorded the signing and a vocoder converted it to speech. If it had a small screen, speech could also be converted into sign, enabling 2-way communication.

OrlandoNative wrote:There's probably also no reason a "translator" DEVICE couldn't be developed, where a visual input device recorded the signing and a vocoder converted it to speech. If it had a small screen, speech could also be converted into sign, enabling 2-way communication.

Yes there is. Plot.

kzt wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:There's probably also no reason a "translator" DEVICE couldn't be developed, where a visual input device recorded the signing and a vocoder converted it to speech. If it had a small screen, speech could also be converted into sign, enabling 2-way communication.

Yes there is. Plot.

So something Stephen Hawking can master is beyond the capability of a treecat?

Weird Harold wrote:

OrlandoNative wrote:People here have thought of it several times. There has been much speculation on where the next treecat colonies will be. So far there are two--on Grayson and on Gryphon. A number of people has speculated that there will soon be colonies on Manticore, Haven, and New Berlin.

The Treecat colonies on Grayson and Gryphon are on Honor's demesnes. The presumed colony on Haven would be under President Pritchard and Adm Theisman's protection -- along with a dozen or so other "bodyguards" companions with significant influence.

A colony on Manticore would have Royal Protection, Constitutional protections, and another of Honor's Demesnes to work with.

The problem with New Potsdam is that Chien Liu would have been the only Andermani with a "bodyguard." There would be no one in New Potsdam who could communicate with a treecat, and no real way to overcome the "pet" image of a treecat when there was no practical communication.

There may be a treecat colony in the Andermani's future, but it won't be a 'near' future.

OrlandoNative wrote:Considering that it was *people* who taught *treecats* to sign, I suspect that there are at least *some* folks in New Potsdam that could communicate with any treecats that might relocate there. Maybe not many, but probably enough to become official "translators".

There's probably also no reason a "translator" DEVICE couldn't be developed, where a visual input device recorded the signing and a vocoder converted it to speech. If it had a small screen, speech could also be converted into sign, enabling 2-way communication.

It may not prove to be so straightforward. Indeed, there may be people fluent in sign in New Potsdam, but it will probably be far removed from treecat sign. Remember, treecat sign language is already a variation of normal sign language. Because treecats don't have the same amount of fingers. And even more so, sign language relies on body language and facial gestures to communicate meaning - a range of movement that is probably not possible for cats. Then you must factor in the fact that German sign language is already much different than that of general sign language. So much so that Germans scoff at it. That awful German language apparently isn't conducive to sign.

I don't recall anyone ever suggesting a visual recorder to translate the physical signing. I'd certainly never thought of it. And I think it is a rather fascinating concept. Although implementing it may be fraught with more than its share of problems, because of a need to teach the computer body language and facial gestures.

An aside:
As I've stated before, I think we should remain cautious of making the mistake of overlooking the human factor. How many people are going to be willing to go through the trouble to actually learn a new and mechanically different "foreign" foreign language just to communicate with cats (a species that many will just see as pets) when these same people refuse to learn a new foreign language to facilitate communication with a larger segment of people? I've shared in another post where family members of many deaf people refuse to learn sign to communicate with their own brother, sister, etc. etc. Or at least haven't made an effort to do so. We mustn't take too much for granted.

Anyone in New Potsdam that may actually bond with a cat notwithstanding.

cthia wrote:An aside:
As I've stated before, I think we should remain cautious of making the mistake of overlooking the human factor. How many people are going to be willing to go through the trouble to actually learn a new and mechanically different "foreign" foreign language just to communicate with cats (a species that many will just see as pets) when these same people refuse to learn a new foreign language to facilitate communication with a larger segment of people? I've shared in another post where family members of many deaf people refuse to learn sign to communicate with their own brother, sister, etc. etc. Or at least haven't made an effort to do so. We mustn't take too much for granted.

Anyone in New Potsdam that may actually bond with a cat notwithstanding.

I would normally agree, but since the reason for learning is for personal survival, there's a relatively powerful incentive to overcome any such difficulties.

Bill Woods wrote:So something Stephen Hawking can master is beyond the capability of a treecat?

Apparently. There is a XBOX based ASL translator out there, so it is certainly well within the capabilities of honorverse tech.

kzt wrote:

Bill Woods wrote:So something Stephen Hawking can master is beyond the capability of a treecat?

Apparently. There is a XBOX based ASL translator out there, so it is certainly well within the capabilities of honorverse tech.

But the versions we have now have their problems. Very much so in "communication mode." The mode in recognizing and translating the sign. I personally thought the hurdle would be insurmountable, because how can one teach a computer to recognize facial gestures and body language. Don't get me wrong, I hope there is a real breakthrough here, because there is a serious need for the tech. Deaf people are cut off from loved ones and a technology as such would be a miracle to many hearing impaired people's quality of life.

But I just don't know how practical it would be. If it would further water down the sign language. Sign language has a real quality to it for those who speak it fluently. But it's ripe with the body language and facial gestures. If a computer can only recognize certain aspects of the spoken sign, then what impact would it ultimately have on the language? Would it inevitably pidgeon-hole the language?

Would it have limited utility as early voice recognition software, unable to ascend the next level?

And what of the differences of each language's signing counterpart?

The XBox's abilities...

While the technology in its current state "can successfully produce good results for translator mode," which picks up isolated words signed by a specific person, "we are diligently working to overcome the technology hurdles so that the system can reliably understand and interpret in communication mode," Wu said. The goal of communication mode is to understand "continuous communication from any competent signer."
Wu added that "while we’re solving those challenges, we are also starting to build up the system's vocabulary of American Sign Language gestures, which are different from those of Chinese Sign Language." Nonetheless, Wu said the project is off to a good start and that his group expects "that more and more researchers from different disciplines and different countries will collaboratively build on the prototype, so that the Kinect Sign Language Translator system will ultimately benefit the global community of those who are deaf or hard of hearing."

http://www.eweek.com/pc-hardware/xboxs- ... guage.html

I suppose, with advanced Honorverse computers and AI, advanced pattern recognition algorithms would be a piece of cake. Though I still see problems and a dialect all its own emerging.

But you don't want it to lose its qualities so much that the ability of the deaf to accurately convey their meaning is further "handicapped." Project that same sentiment on to the cats, whose form of communication is already watered down, then watered down again by a different form of communication. Then watered down again in adapting that form of communication to them. Then watered down again because of the inaccuracies of the system, then watered down again because of the German. Then watered down again because of the cats and the human's lack of mastery - lends a new meaning to Lost in Translation.

I tend to think that 3000 years of faster processors and better pattern recognition algorithms will probably produce at least some significant degree of improvement.

So yeah, the fact that something is today pretty much within our grasp if we applied a focused development effort to it means that the only reason this doesn't exist in an essentially COTS system is plot armor.

OrlandoNative wrote:There's probably also no reason a "translator" DEVICE couldn't be developed, ...

There is no such device now, hence your future verb tense -- "could be developed" -- and my assertion:

There may be a treecat colony in the Andermani's future, but it won't be a 'near' future.