| Thu, 23 Jul 2009
Cybernetic EnhancementA couple of days ago I got fitted with my hearing aid. Which, incidentally, is green with sparkly bits. It makes a tremendous difference, I can actually hear people talking on my left side now, and when one of the lifts goes "ding!" I can tell which one it is without having to look at them all. Directional hearing is awesome! Two of the features of all modern hearing aids are the telecoil and DAI (direct audio input). The telecoil is a useless obsolete hangover from simpler days. I'm sure that back in the 1960s they were better than nothing, but these days primitive wideband receivers are unacceptable because they indiscriminately pick up noise from all over the spectrum. And there's a lot of noise around. For instance, it picks up 50Hz hum from the mains electricity supply, and computers spew crap all over the first few 100 Hz. We have better wireless technology now.
There is just one bluetooth thingy made, and it's quite expensive. But ho-hum, small market etc, so I suppose that's to be expected. However, the DAI socket is a bog standard analogue affair, so there's really no reason for there not to be loads of things to help me plug my ipod into it. But no. There aren't. There are a few for people who have two hearing aids, but not for people who can hear just fine on one side so need one DAI thingy and one normal earphone. Grrr. | ||
| Wed, 30 Jul 2008
Lip-reading lessonsRecently a brochure dropped into my doormat listing a load of courses offered by my local borough council's adult education department. Many of you will be aware that I am somewhat deaf, and getting deafer. That brochure arriving caused something that Earl Filthy of Monkeyshire, OBE, WTD, KFC had said a few months ago in't pub to rise from the vile and putrid depths of my brane (it had presumably been rooting around in the basement for pornography or zombie flicks. Or both), and so I was prompted to look in the brochure for lip-reading courses. And lo! There was one! But unlike every single other course, it didn't say when, where, or how much. So I emailed them. No response. I phoned them. Got through to a lovely young lady who told me that the person dealing with that course was off having her lunch but she'd phone me back. Did they phone back? Did they fuck. So, can anyone point me at a Lip-reading For Complete Beginners course, either in Croydon or central London, which isn't run by disorganised fuckwits? | ||
| Fri, 13 Oct 2006
The VeilThe recent palaver about the full-face veil worn by some Moslem women (and it should be noted that the politician who raised the issue is somewhat deaf and to a large degree only understands what people are saying by lip-reading) prompted me to think (again) about why the veil exists. If the full veil really were a reaction to uncontrollable male lust, then surely us uncontrolled lustful males would just rip the damned things off so we could get at the gloriously rapeable wenches* hiding underneath. In which case, the best response to the presence of those uncontrollable male beasts would be for the Moslem community to arm its women and send them to self-defence classes. I note a distinct lack of veil-ripping, and also of Moslem women at self-defence classes. Which, to be perfectly blunt, demonstrates that all that prattle about lust is somewhat terminologically inexact. * I like that phrase so much that I'll say it again. "Gloriously rapeable wenches". Lovely. | ||