I never saw a multi-tasking opportunity I didn’t like. So it didn’t take long, with piles of books to read for grad school and some road trips in the offing, to figure out that reading and driving had to become fellow travelers.
“Audio books!” said my daughter.
“Of course!” I said.
But Google quickly stepped up to announce that the must-reads from academia had no authors or throaty-voiced professional actors reading them. Apparently audio requires a readership as large as the state of Texas, and treatises on human engagement appeal to a Wyoming-size crowd.
“None of these books are on audio,” I wailed. “And even if they were, I’d still have tons to read on PDF.”
The mere mention of PDF brought an instant Aha!
“What about text-to-speech?” she said.
It took a moment to compute. “Somebody reads it?” I asked.
“A robot,” she replied.
I immediately pictured a road trip with a gold, long-legged C-3PO in the passenger seat. The thought was not appealing, but I was desperate, and Google quickly brought up the words Kindle and text-to-speech in the same sentence. Miraculously, in the time it might have taken me to read 250 pages, I managed to download a 69-page article on civic engagement and the arts into my Kindle. This was in case the 437-page book on human engagement wasn’t enough to entertain me across a couple of states. Unfortunately, I didn’t test-drive it until takeoff, which was a poor time to discover that my particular version of Kindle had no 3G or speakers.
After swallowing hard and ordering the speaking version, I could hardly wait until Trip No. 2. This time, thanks to my new-found expertise, the download took only as long as it would have taken to read a 125-page book, and I was soon driving due west with a reading robot.
“Collaboration with regional folklife or local ethnography center….” it droned on, with so little affect that I hardly noticed that in about three miles it had already proceeded to “Walker, Edward T. 2008 Contingent Pathways….” which, it turned out, was on the last page of the reference section. As much as I wanted to be that far along, the leap was alarming.
“Might have hit a bump,” my tech-savvy friend Tom later told me. “Try to drive a little smoother.”
Apparently, I got the hang of it because the next time out, I made it through six chapters without incident. All went perfectly until I passed by Zulu, Indiana, and my GPS, which insists on re-directing me to Kenton, Ohio, no matter where I am, kicked in.
“Turn right, turn right,” it said, rather desperately, as if to compete with the other robot, now reciting statistics on regional folklife and ethnography centers.
“Shut Up!” I shouted. “I don’t want to go to Kenton!” Apparently, the disturbance was enough to jolt C-3PO, who immediately leaped to “Walker, Edward T. 2008. Contingent Pathways….”
“Oh, no,” I groaned, mentally composing a return letter for Kindle with speakers. And I would have sent it, only now I’m multi-tasking at bedtime. There’s nothing like the robot to put you to sleep.
Copyright 2012 Pat Snyder
